Sonoma County Pauses Use Of Johnson & Johnson Vaccine

SONOMA COUNTY, CA – Sonoma County has paused further allocation and use of the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) coronavirus vaccine at the recommendation of the U.S. Centers For Disease Control and the California Public Health, Sonoma County's Vaccine Chief, Dr. Urmila Shende, said in a statement issued Tuesday.

Until the safety of the J&J COVID-19 vaccine has been reviewed by federal authorities it will not be distributed or administered by Sonoma County public health officials, according to the statement.

"We do not believe this precautionary interruption will have a significant impact on our vaccination efforts here in Sonoma County as, due to production delays on the East Coast, we only received about 400 J&J doses this week," Shende said. "This does not include federal allocations of the J&J vaccine that have gone out to pharmacies or other vendors. We do not have access to those numbers."

A drive-thru clinic Tuesday at the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Building was scheduled to administer J&J vaccines to about 100 people but the county's health team was able to "quickly switch gears this morning, and that clinic was allowed to go forward as scheduled using the Moderna vaccine instead," Shende said.

The West County Community Health Center also had a clinic planned for Tuesday using the J&J vaccine, but that clinic was suspended for the time being, Shende said.

Of the more than 362,000 vaccine doses administered in Sonoma County, about 11,000 have been J&J.

"While the immediate impacts of this delay may be minimal in our area, we recognize that this will make finding vaccination appointments all the more difficult particularly at a time when eligibility will be opening up to everyone age 16 and over starting on Thursday," Shende said. "We encourage everyone to be patient as they search for appointments as our supply was already limited before this hold took effect."

For those with questions about the J&J vaccine, Shende said the FDA and the CDC issued a joint statement and were expected to issue additional health guidance.

"Please recognize that this pause in distribution is being done out of an abundance of caution," Shende said. "More than 6.8 million doses of the J&J vaccination have been administered nationally. Of these, federal health authorities are looking into six reported cases of a type of blood clot occurring with symptoms appearing six to 13 days after vaccination. So while the possible links are concerning, these cases are extremely rare, as noted by state epidemiologist Dr. Erica Pan."

Nevertheless, COVID-19 vaccine safety is a top priority for the federal, state and local governments, all of whom take reports of health problems following COVID-19 vaccination very seriously, Shende said.

Any community members who received the J&J vaccine and experience severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain and/or shortness of breath one to three weeks after getting vaccinated should contact their primary health care provider or a local health clinic, Shende said.