FDA Lifts Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Pause

The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday that vaccine providers can restart their use of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID19 vaccine.

The vaccine rollout has been on hold for ten days due to the six reported cases of severe blood clots among the 6.8 million shots administered.

However, the decision to lift the pause was expected, as FDA revealed last week that their decision to pause the J&J vaccine was “out of an abundance of caution.”

With an approval from federal health officials, the U.S. is expected to resume using Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine within days. Following the report, CVS, one of the biggest retail pharmacy chains, announced Friday it plans to resume J&J vaccinations next week.

The FDA also decided to add the warning label to the vaccine about the risk of unusual blood clots in women under 50.

Despite the decisions from the federal health experts, not every state has made their minds about resuming the J&J rollout. So far, New York and only about dozens of states have decided to use J&J vaccines again.

Article by Dongyoon Shin