Early yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that the US pause distribution of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine following reports of blood clotting in six recipients, all of them women aged between eighteen and forty-eight, one of whom has died and another of whom is critically ill. States, businesses, and federal facilities quickly followed the guidance. Around seven million people have received the J&J vaccine in the US; the pause is intended to allow officials and experts to investigate the instances of clotting and whether there are more of them, and to communicate care protocols to doctors, given that typical clotting treatments could, in the type of cases at issue here, prove harmful. Bolstering public confidence is also at issue: a source with knowledge of the deliberations told the Washington Post that officials agreed that “there is a tremendous need for vaccines, but also a tremendous need for trust in the vaccine.”
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