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Officials: Pennsylvania providers pausing J&J vaccine distribution | TribLIVE.com
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Officials: Pennsylvania providers pausing J&J vaccine distribution

Teghan Simonton
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Shane Dunlap | Tribune-Review
A vial of Johnson & Johnson covid vaccine at an April 9 clinic held by Allegheny Health Network.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health on Tuesday announced all providers in the state would pause use of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine until at least April 20, following advice from federal regulators.

“While this announcement is challenging, it highlights the vaccine evaluation process,” Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam said in a statement. “The CDC and the FDA are closely monitoring vaccines for safety and effectiveness, and if there is a cause for concern, they will take action because safety is paramount.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended a pause in Johnson & Johnson use after a small cluster of reported cases of blood clots that occurred among six women in the two weeks following their vaccination.

The clots were observed along with reduced platelet counts — making the usual treatment for blood clots, the blood thinner heparin, potentially “dangerous.”

To date, more than 6.8 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in the U.S. – most with no severe side effects. Regulators are conducting an investigation into the cause of the clots and low platelets, “out of an abundance of caution.” The CDC is convening an emergency meeting tomorrow of the Advisory Committee on Immunizations Practices to further review cases for any details on the significance of this rare occurrence.

Pennsylvania providers have administered more than 6.5 million vaccine doses as of Tuesday — including 262,739 doses of Johnson & Johnson. Beam said it doesn’t appear any of the six cases of concern occurred in the state.

State health officials expressed some concern the pause would cause a spike in general vaccine hesitancy. But Beam said the protocol should give Pennsylvania residents confidence in the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, “and individuals should proceed with getting vaccinated as soon as possible to fight the virus, particularly as our case counts rise.”

“There’s been a high level of scrutiny to this vaccine,” added Dr. Denise Johnson, Pennsylvania’s Acting Physician General. “So even though there are only six cases that have come to our attention, we have this pause so we can evaluate closely to see whether actions need to be taken. I believe people should feel more confident that we are scrutinizing this process so closely, more closely than we’ve ever done with any process like this.”

The pause in Johnson & Johnson distribution comes the same day Pennsylvania officially opened vaccine eligibility to all adult residents — a full week sooner than planned. The move was meant to create more demand as vaccine supply increased, officials said.

Beam said she is confidence appointment availability will remain high in Pennsylvania even amid the pause, thanks to steady allocations of the two other vaccines.

“Much of that scheduling really was reliant upon the Pfizer and Moderna predictability, primarily because those are the allocations that have stayed steady or incrementally increase week over week,” Beam said during a news conference. “The availability of the J&J vaccine has fluctuated…and so what we really trust at this point is that our provider community, again, can continue to rely on the Pfizer and Moderna allocations and be able to schedule all of those Pennsylvanians that are interested in getting vaccinated.”

A statement from Jeff Zients, the White House covid-19 response coordinator, said the single-dose shots make up less than 5% of the recorded shots in arms across the U.S.

“Based on actions taken by the president earlier this year, the United States has secured enough Pfizer and Moderna doses for 300 million Americans,” Zients said. “Over the last few weeks, we have made available more than 25 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna each week, and in fact this week we will make available 28 million doses of these vaccines. This is more than enough supply to continue the current pace of vaccinations of 3 million shots per day.”

Zients said state and federal partners are working to get anyone scheduled for a Johnson & Johnson vaccine quickly rescheduled for a Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine.

Locally, providers have already shifted their clinic plans. A mass vaccination clinic at Pittsburgh Mills in Frazer, which UPMC had previously scheduled for this Wednesday and Thursday, will continue. Originally slated to administer 12,000 Johnson & Johnson shots, the clinicians will now administer doses of Pfizer-BioNTech.

UPMC said the Johnson & Johnson doses would not go to waste; they will be stored until providers receive further guidance.

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Categories: Coronavirus | Local | Pennsylvania | Top Stories
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