With OK from experts, J&J vaccine use resumes

NEW YORK (AP) -- With a green light from federal health officials, many states resumed use of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine on Saturday, April 24. The states included New York, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
Those moves came swiftly after U.S. health officials said Friday evening that they were lifting an 11-day pause on vaccinations using the J&J vaccine. During the pause, scientific advisers decided the vaccine's benefits outweigh a rare risk of blood clot.
"The state of New York will resume administration of this vaccine at all of our state-run sites effective immediately," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement Saturday morning.
"The vaccine is the weapon that will win the war against COVID and allow everyone to resume normalcy, and we have three proven vaccines at our disposal," Cuomo said, urging New York residents to take whichever one is available to them first.
"The sooner we all get vaccinated, the sooner we can put the long COVID nightmare behind us once and for all," he said.
The federal government uncovered 15 vaccine recipients who developed a highly unusual kind of blood clot out of nearly 8 million people given the J&J shot. All were women, most under age 50. Three died, and seven remain hospitalized.
But ultimately, federal health officials decided that J&J's one-and-done vaccine is critical to fight the pandemic -- and that the small clot risk could be handled with warnings to help younger women decide if they should use that shot or an alternative.
"The data has shown the vaccine's known benefits far outweigh the potential and extremely rare risks, but we urge anyone with questions about the COVID-19 vaccines to speak with their healthcare provider," said state health commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker.