Washington – Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said on Sunday that he believes there will be a decision to stop the use break Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine since Friday.
“A decision will almost certainly be made by Friday,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with “Make the Nation.” “I don’t really anticipate that they will want to stretch it a little more, in one way or another, to make a decision about J&J. I don’t know what it will be, but thinking about the possibilities, one of the possibilities would be to bring them back, but to do it with a form of restriction or a form of warning. But I think by Friday we’ll know the answer to that. “
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) jointly recommended last week a temporary “break” on the use of the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine after six women reported a rare blood clotting disorder. The women, aged between 18 and 48, showed symptoms six to 13 days after receiving Johnson & Johnson’s blow.
Federal officials, including Fauci, pointed out that side effects are incredibly rare, but said those receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should be alert to symptoms such as severe headaches, some difficulty moving, chest discomfort and difficulty breathing.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine accounted for a small portion of the approximately 190 million doses that had been administered when US health agencies requested the discontinuation last week. The White House said the temporary detention should not have an impact on President Biden’s vaccination plan, as the government has provided enough doses of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna to keep up with vaccinations.
While a CDC advisory committee met last Wednesday to discuss stopping the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, its members did not vote on whether the break should be extended, citing insufficient data to make final recommendations.
Fauci said there could be gender-based restrictions on the use of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 fire, but called for caution, as the disease has so far been seen in only six people in millions of recipients. He also mentioned that cases of rare blood clots with the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine have been reported in the European Union and the United Kingdom, which were not limited to women.
“This is one of the points we want to pay attention to,” he said. “So you don’t want to jump in front of you and decide that you know the full spectrum of this, which is one of the reasons they stopped and why, hopefully, we’ll know by Friday.”
The break for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine raised concerns that it could lead to more hesitation in the vaccine, but Fauci stressed that each of the three FDA-approved vaccines – from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson – are extremely effective.
“The only thing we should emphasize when you’re dealing with for sure is that people shouldn’t extrapolate a break with one vaccine to other vaccines,” he said. “For example, the same surveillance system that took over the six women in J&J was the same surveillance system that the CDC and the FDA use with the Moderna product and the Pfizer product. And so far, there have been no red flags that, although you know, tens, tens and tens of millions of people have been vaccinated with these vaccines. So one of the things you can take away from all of this is that when the surveillance system, the CDC and the FDA say something is safe, you can be sure it’s safe. “
The United States administers between 3 million and 4 million doses of coronavirus vaccines daily and so far nearly 206 million photographs have been administered. Nearly 40 percent of the total US population received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, according to the CDC.
To keep the infection rate low, Fauci said it is crucial to continue the current vaccination rate, adding that mitigation measures should not be eased at this time, as the US still reports between 60,000 and 70,000 new infections a day.
“I don’t think it would be prudent to declare victory prematurely and withdraw,” he said. “Undoubtedly, as we continue to vaccinate more and more people every day, this rate will decrease if we do not give the virus the opportunity to grow in essence.”
Fauci said that if Americans “stay there longer, I think we’ll be fine.”
“We will get to the point where we can go back to things like we did before,” he said. But we will have to make sure we vaccinate as many people as possible.
Fauci predicted that Americans would know by the end of the summer if they needed a booster shot to protect themselves against new strains of coronavirus.