A decision to resume administration of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine should be made this Friday when a panel of experts advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, is to meet.
“I think we will make a decision by then,” said Dr. Fauci on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union program.
“I don’t want to be one step ahead of the CDC, the FDA and the Advisory Committee,” he added, but said he expected experts to recommend “some kind of warning or restriction” on using the vaccine.
Federal health officials recommended suspending vaccine injections Tuesday while investigating whether this was related to a rare bleeding disorder. All 50 states except Washington, DC and Puerto Rico have stopped giving the vaccine.
The unusual disorder includes blood clots in the brain combined with low levels of platelets, blood cells that typically promote clotting. The combination, which can lead to coagulation and bleeding at the same time, was initially documented in six women between the ages of 18 and 48 who had received the vaccine one to three weeks earlier. One of the women died and another was hospitalized in critical condition.
This pattern has raised questions about whether vaccinations could be resumed in men or in the elderly. However, with women filling more healthcare positions for which vaccination has been prioritized, it is not clear how the problem could affect men as well. Two more cases of the coagulation disorder were identified on Wednesday, including one in a man who received the vaccine in a clinical trial.
Of the 129.5 million people in the United States who received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, more than seven million have received Johnson & Johnson’s. If there is a link between the vaccine and the coagulation disorder, the risk remains extremely low, according to experts.
“It is an extremely rare occurrence,” said Dr. Fauci on the ABC program “This Week”. The break should give experts time to gather more information and warn doctors about the clotting disorder so they can make more informed treatment decisions, said Dr. Fauci, who appeared on four television news programs on Sunday morning.
European regulators have investigated similar cases of the unusual coagulation disorder in people who received the AstraZeneca vaccine. Some European countries have now stopped giving this vaccine completely, while others have restricted its use in younger people.
Dr. Fauci also expressed frustration that “a worryingly large segment of Republicans” who have criticized many of the coronavirus restrictions have expressed reluctance to vaccinate. “It’s almost paradoxical,” he said. “On the one hand, they want to be released from the restrictions, on the other hand, they don’t want to be vaccinated. It just makes almost no sense. “
Dr. Fauci said he expects all students to be eligible for a vaccination before school starts in the fall, with younger children being eligible by Q1 2022 at the latest.
