Fauci says J&J pause shouldn't cause hesitancy

Top U.S. health officials urged Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19 on Wednesday, saying U.S. regulators' pause on Johnson & Johnson shots should boost confidence in the vaccines' safety and not the other way around.

Colette Luke has more.

ANTHONY FAUCI: “This was done in an abundance of caution." President Biden’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, urged Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19 on Wednesday, saying U.S. regulators’ pause on Johnson & Johnson shots, following reports it can cause rare blood clotting, should boost trust in the vaccines’ safety, giving Americans more confidence, not less.

ANTHONY FAUCI: “It should reinforce in those individuals how we take safety so seriously, so as opposed to looking at this as a negative safety issue, it could be looked at as a positive issue…” On Tuesday, U.S. federal health agencies recommended pausing use of J&J's single-dose COVID-19 vaccine for at least a few days after six women under 50 developed rare blood clots after getting the shot.

White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients on Wednesday reassured Americans that the J&J pause will not effect overall vaccine supply.

“The J&J vaccine makes up more than 5 percent of the more than 190 million recorded shots in the arms in U.S. to do date… importantly it means that we have more than enough supply of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to continue the current pace of vaccination, to meet the president’s goal of 200 million shots in his 100th day in office and continue to reach every adult who wants to be vaccinated by the end of May.

We are working now with our state and federal partners to get anyone currently scheduled with a J&J vaccine with a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.” The CDC’s immunization panel on Wednesday reviewed the clotting cases and planned to make recommendations.

The FDA said the J&J halt was needed to help physicians understand how to recognize and treat the issue, as a standard treatment for clotting could cause serious complications or death.

The 6 cases were reported out of more than 7 million U.S. doses of the J&J vaccine that have been administered - a risk federal officials said was extremely low.

Similar rare brain blood clots have been reported with AstraZeneca's vaccine in Europe, where it was decided the shot's benefits outweigh the clotting risk.

There had been no reported blood clot cases related to the Moderna or Pfizer shots and health officials are urging Americans to keep their vaccine appointments.