Some States Resume Use of J&J Vaccine

Health officials lifted pause Friday
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Apr 24, 2021 1:30 PM CDT
Some States Resume Use of J&J Vaccine
In this April 8, 2021 photo, the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine is seen at a pop-up vaccination site in the Staten Island borough of New York.   (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

With a green light from federal health officials, several states resumed use of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine on Saturday. Among the venues where it was being deployed: the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Among the other states ordering or recommending a resumption, along with Indiana, were New York, Virginia, Missouri, Michigan, Arizona, and Tennessee. Those moves came swiftly after US. health officials said Friday evening that they were lifting an 11-day pause on vaccinations using the J&J vaccine, the AP reports. During the pause, scientific advisers decided the vaccine’s benefits outweigh a rare risk of blood clots.

"The state of New York will resume administration of this vaccine at all of our state-run sites effective immediately,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement Saturday, calling the vaccine "the weapon that will win the war against COVID" and urging residents to take whichever vaccine is available to them first. The federal government uncovered 15 vaccine recipients who developed a highly unusual kind of blood clot out of nearly 8 million people given the J&J shot. All were women, most under age 50. Three died, and seven remain hospitalized. But ultimately, federal health officials decided that J&J’s one-and-done vaccine is critical to fight the pandemic—and that the risk could be handled with warnings to help younger women decide if they should use that shot or an alternative.

(More coronavirus vaccine stories.)

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