Little risk seen to 504 who got Johnson & Johnson vaccine in Lakebay before pause
The risk from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is very low, health officials said after more than 500 people received the shot on the Key Peninsula just before a rare reaction triggered a pause in inoculations.
A total of 504 people received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine at Key Peninsula Middle School in Lakebay on April 12. The drive-through clinic was managed by the County Department of Emergency Management.
The event came just one day before federal officials called for a pause in administering the vaccine to conduct a review of an “extremely rare” number, only six in nearly 7 million, of cases of blood clots.
Mike Halliday, public information specialist for the county department, told The Gateway on Tuesday that those who attended should look up the Center for Disease Control statement and monitor for symptoms in the rare event they develop.
“If they develop a severe headache, abdominal pain, shortness of breath within three weeks after the vaccination, they should contact their healthcare provider,” Halliday said reading from the CDC statement.
Six U.S. women who received the shots developed a severe form of blood clotting six to 13 days after vaccination. None lived in Washington state. All six were women between the ages of 18 and 48 and symptoms occurred six to 13 days after vaccination.
Pausing vaccine
The Washington State Department of Health announced Tuesday it will pause the use of the J&J vaccine statewide effective immediately. There is no current timeline as to when the vaccine will resume being administered and the DOH said they will wait until there is further federal guidance.
According to the most recent numbers, about 149,000 doses of J & J vaccine have been administered in Washington so far, out of more than 4 million doses total.
“It also demonstrates how well the robust vaccine safety monitoring systems work, since this potential safety concern was identified quickly and vaccines were paused to allow for further investigation,” a DOH release says.
The risk of complications for those who got the vaccine more than a month ago appears to be very low, according to the Washington state Department of Health. The state said the pause was being taken out of an abundance of caution after six U.S. patients, none known to live in Washington state, developed serious blood clots combined with low platelet counts. One woman died.
“Right now these adverse events appear to be extremely rare,” the Centers of Disease Control and Food and Drug Administration said in a joint statement.
The FDA said that a probable cause is a rare immune response generated by the individual after receiving the vaccine.
The J&J clinic in Lakebay was one of a handful that have taken place across the bridge from Tacoma, part of an effort to reach all areas of the county.
“Our goal is to keep moving forward with vaccinating people at different locations in the county,” Halliday said. “We’re going to smaller locations that are a little farther out just to try to help reduce barriers for people so that they can get vaccinated. Our plan is to continue with that model going forward as long as we keep getting plenty of vaccines.”
Shifting to substitutes
Following the news about the temporary pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccinations, Pierce County has shifted to providing Moderna or Pfizer vaccines at existing appointments.
Halliday said there is another event for a second dose at Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church in Gig Harbor on May 7 and then another event at the same location being worked on for the end at that month. The second dose event is for those who attended a first dose event at Chapel Hill last Friday.
Halliday said 1,131 Moderna doses were administered with 158 cancellations and 58 no-shows. Cancellations and no-shows aren’t cause for alarm, Halliday said, as it is often due to people changing their vaccination plans.
“What we think is happening or what we’ve noticed is that people are making reservations to come to our site, but they’re also making appointments to go to other locations as well,” Halliday said. “Then they go to one of those other locations and they either go into our site to cancel their appointment or sometimes they don’t. ”
Stephanie Dunkel, assistant division director at the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, said people are also seeking out specific locations and specific types of vaccines based on their own wants.
“We are also seeing that folks are looking for certain types of vaccine. And that’s definitely, you know, a factor right now they’re interested in different types, or they’re interested in receiving it only at a certain location, like maybe their primary care provider,” Dunkel said. “I think folks are, as we roll into these next phases, they’re looking for vaccines at locations that work best for them.”
In an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press’ on Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said “I doubt very seriously if they just cancel” the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
“It would be surprising “if we don’t have a resumption in some form by Friday (April 23),” Fauci said, according to the McClatchy News Service, “One of those possibilities would be to bring them back, but to do it with some form of restriction or some form of warning.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. approached another milestone in its months-long push to inoculate most Americans against the coronavirus.
Some 49.7% of people in the U.S. age 18 and older have had at least one vaccine dose, the CDC said last Saturday on its website. Almost 32% in that age range are fully vaccinated.
Among older people, who are at the most risk for complications if they contract COVID-19, almost 81% have had a first vaccine dose and over 65% are fully vaccinated, the CDC said.
The U.S. should be able to vaccinate children “of virtually any age” by first quarter of 2022, Fauci said on CNN.
Josephine Peterson of The News Tribune contributed to this story.
This story was originally published April 13, 2021 at 1:07 PM.
