NYC Pauses J&J Vaccinations as of Tuesday, De Blasio Says

(Bloomberg) -- New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city would pause all Johnson & Johnson vaccinations on Tuesday following guidance from U.S. health officials.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration called for an immediate pause in using J&J’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine after six women who received it developed a rare and severe form of blood clotting.

The city will reschedule upcoming appointments for residents, who will receive vaccines made by Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc., de Blasio said in a Tuesday briefing. Prisons, which largely depend on J&J doses, will also have to shift jabs to Pfizer and Moderna.

Dave Chokshi, the city’s health commissioner, said 4,000 appointments for Tuesday will be rescheduled “in the coming days.” Chokshi said the city is “proceeding out of an abundance of caution” but that he saw the pause as a sign the vaccine system is working as it should by flagging aberrations. The federal government deliberately put a “pause,” rather than a stop to the vaccinations, he said.

The city will also suspend its drive to vaccinate homebound seniors, which has relied on the J&J vaccine to bring doses directly to people’s residences. “We’d like to get back to that as quickly as possible, but we’ll need answers from the federal government,” de Blasio said.

De Blasio, who received the Johnson & Johnson shot himself, said the city has given 234,000 doses of the vaccine and hasn’t seen any reports of blood clots and made an appeal to the federal government to reallocate shots from regions with over capacity. “We have endless need, endless demand,” he said.

Overall, the city has delivered more than 5 million doses as it seeks to fully vaccinate 5 million New Yorkers by June.

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