Anthony Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, has weighed in on the recent pause on the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. Dr. Fauci appeared on NBC’s Today Thursday morning to talk about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) recommendation that the U.S. halt administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccination “out of an abundance of caution” as the agencies look further into six cases of rare blood clots in the brain and low platelet counts.
People who have already received the single-dose J&J vaccine shouldn’t be overly concerned, Dr. Fauci says. “The first bit of advice is really don’t worry very much, because just as we’ve said, it is a very, very rare event,” he told anchor Savannah Guthrie. Secondly, he pointed out that all of the reported cases (which occurred in women ages 18 to 48) began between 6 and 13 days after getting the shot, meaning that people who got their vaccine more than two weeks ago should feel even more assured that they are in the clear. “If you got your vaccine several weeks ago, then it makes it even less likely that you should have any concern at all,” Dr. Fauci said.
As for individuals who have gotten the J&J shot more recently than that, Dr. Fauci’s advice is to “stay heads-up for symptoms” that could indicate a blood clot, such as a severe headache, abdominal pain, and chest pain. And, again, he emphasized that it’s important for people to keep the rarity of these cases in perspective. “You don’t want people who have just received the vaccine to be overly worried about this,” he said. These six reported cases are out of nearly 7 million doses of the J&J vaccination administered in the U.S. at this point, according to the CDC.
While the vaccine is on hold, a CDC advisory panel and the FDA are reviewing the cases in question to determine whether there is in fact a causal link between the vaccine and the blood clots. As Dr. Fauci notes, these cases bear “some rather strong similarities” to the blood clots in the brain linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine that led Europe to pause the vaccine briefly in March. Specifically, the two scenarios share similarities in the timeframe in which the clots appear after vaccination and with the low platelet issues seen alongside the clots after both vaccines, he said.
And we may have an answer very soon: Dr. Fauci doesn’t expect the investigation to “drag out,” lasting a few weeks at most. “I don’t want to get ahead of the advisory committee and immunization practices, but I believe this is going to take days to weeks, as opposed to weeks to months,” Dr. Fauci said. “I think we’re going to be hearing about a decision pretty quickly.” He added, “They want to take a quick pause, take a look at it, see what’s going on, see if there are any more details, and then that’s it.”
While people are understandably alarmed, especially those who may already be hesitant about getting a vaccine, Dr. Fauci is actually hopeful that this situation could ultimately increase confidence in vaccines. “One of the most important reasons why people have hesitancy is they’re concerned about the safety,” he said. “The very fact that you have the CDC and the FDA looking so carefully at this, making safety the primary concern, in my mind, confirms or underscores the situation that we take safety very seriously. So I would think, at the end of the day, it could actually diminish hesitancy by saying, ‘Boy, those people there, they’re looking at that really carefully. When they say something is safe, you can believe it is safe.’”
Related:
- How to Cope With Anxieties and Questions About COVID-19 Vaccines
- The CDC’s COVID-19 Cleaning Guidelines Now Say You Can Take It Easy With the Disinfectants
- This Worrying COVID-19 Variant Is Now the Most Common Strain in the U.S.