UW-Health Offers Statement on Johnson & Johnson COVID Vaccine

Monday, April 26th, 2021 -- 1:01 PM

(WBAY) Vaccinations for the Johnson & Johnson single dose COVID-19 vaccine can start being administered again.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the Food and Drug Administration have lifted the pause on the vaccine after a panel recommended the vaccines continue with an advisory.

As previously reported, public health authorities put a pause on the vaccine after 15 people out of 8,000,000 doses given, had suffered from severe blood clots about two weeks after receiving their shot. Three people died.  Now, UW Health officials say the risks of getting a blood clot from the vaccine are extremely low.

“We weight the risks versus the benefits. We understand the risks of COVID and we know that the case fatality rate is that if you put a 100 people in a room with COVID, one or two of them are going to die. You are going to have to put more than a million people in a room for one of them to even have this condition,” said Dr. Jeff Pothof, the Chief Quality Officer for UW Health.

“It’s so rare that even the people that are more likely to have it probably don’t have it.”  Now, the FDA will include a warning about the risk most commonly seen in adult women under the age of 50.

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