Local vaccine clinics impacted by Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif.
Santa Barbara County Public Health and Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics stopped using Johnson & Johnson/Janssen COVID-19 vaccines on Tuesday after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paused theIR use due to rare blood clots under review.
The CDC is looking into the cases of six vaccine recipients including a young woman who died and another young woman who was hospitalized.
Nearly 7 million people have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the U.S.
The vaccine is also referred to as the Janssen vaccine since Johnson & Johnson owns Janssen.
Santa Barbara County Emergency Medical Services Agency Director Nick Clay said the county decided to pause use of the vaccine out of an abundance of caution.
He called it a one in a million chance of having an adverse reaction.
Clay is still urging people to get vaccinated when it is their turn.
"We will wait, but we believe this will be a just a pause, it won't be a stop, it will be a pause in the vaccination usage of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine," said Clay.
The county issued a statement saying: "Any clinics scheduled this week that originally planned to use the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will not be cancelled , but instead use the Moderna vaccine."
Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics Chief Medical Officer Dr. Charles Fenzi stepped outside between patients at the clinic in Goleta to talk about the issue.
Dr. Fenzi said his staff decided to call clients who had vaccination appointments to answer questions. He said their vaccines are being rescheduled as soon as possible.
They decided to postpone today's vaccination clinic at Franklin Elementary School. He said the location that was being used for testing will be used for vaccines on future Tuesdays as long as they have approved vaccines available.
Teens under the age of 18 are only allowed to have two-dose Pfizer vaccine so they many not be impacted by the pause.
Vaccine appointments could become harder to get depending on the supplies of Moderna and Pfizer received by the county.
Hector Barrera recently received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and said he would do it again. Barrera said he liked that is was a "one and done" vaccine.
He said his arm was sore, but he soon felt fine.
Dr. Fenzi said it is still important to get the vaccines that are available because the cases being looked into are extremely rare.
Santa Barbara County Public Health will on creating new clinics using Moderna using the My Turn appointment app. People will be contacted if they need to reschedule or re-register.
Plans could change again if the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention choose to resume use of the single dose vaccine.
