California is pausing use of Johnson & Johnson's single-dose coronavirus vaccine "out of an abundance of caution," Gov. Newsom announced Tuesday.
Officials in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and San Francisco counties also said Tuesday that they would pause using the shots.
This comes after the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended pausing use of the vaccine at federal sites after six recipients in the United States developed a rare blood clot disorder within two weeks of vaccination, out of the 7 million shots that have been administered.
The federal agencies suggested that states follow suit, and within hours every state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico had announced their own pause.
Newsom said the move would not have a major impact on the state's vaccine supply as Johnson & Johnson makes up just 4% of the state's supply. The state was already expecting a big drop in supply of the company's vaccine this week due to a manufacturing problem, which wiped out 12 million doses.
The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) also said in an email to KCBS Radio that a pause should not impact operations at the mass vaccination site at the Oakland Coliseum because it had already transitioned from the Johnson & Johnson drug back to Pfizer after Alameda and Contra Costa officials took over this week. That site gives 6,000 shots per day.
The pause may be just a bump in the road that could be resolved soon after doctors take a closer look at the blood clot cases.
Dr. George Rutherford is head of the Prevention and Public Health Group at the University of California, San Francisco, and he told KCBS Radio that blood clotting is not uncommon.
“People get blood clots all the time,” Dr. Rutherford said. “So the question is, is this happenstance or is it random, or is the cause related to the vaccine?”
He added that Johnson and Johnson only accounts for 10% of the shots given in the state and most of the vaccines have been from Pfizer and Moderna.