Many NJ COVID Vaccines Postponed, Rescheduled Now That J&J Paused

NEW JERSEY — Many appointments to get the COVID-19 vaccine in New Jersey will be canceled, rescheduled or modified now that New Jersey followed a recommendation from federal health officials and "paused" the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine statewide on Tuesday (see where below).

But during a media call on Tuesday, federal officials also said they expect that pause will only last a "matter of days," and reminded citizens that getting vaccinated against the coronavirus is still extremely important.

The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended a pause in the use of the New Brunswick-based company's COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday because of blood-clot concerns.

"J&J vaccine appointments will be canceled or put on hold at all New Jersey vaccination sites until further notice," Gov. Phil Murphy announced shortly after. "The New Jersey Department of Health will work with all vaccination sites to make arrangements for the administration of an alternative 2-dose vaccine."

The response has varied across the state.

Several New Jersey chain pharmacies are pausing the use of the vaccine, including Wegmans, CVS and Walgreens. It's not clear what impact the actions will have on appointments. Read more: NJ Pharmacies To Stop Using Johnson & Johnson Vaccine

Here is what vaccination sites – including those run by county or municipal governments and healthcare centers – are planning to do:

• At the state's mega-site in Gloucester County, patients who were to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will now get Pfizer. They also have the option to cancel their appointment if they like.
• The Ocean County Health Department announced that residents who have appointments scheduled this week to receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be postponed until further notice. They will be offered the option of receiving the Moderna vaccine at a later date.
• Ocean Health Initiatives, which recently hosted a Johnson & Johnson event at the Lakewood Blue Claws stadium, also announced that it's switching to Moderna
• Chai Urgent Care in Ocean County has canceled all Johnson & Johnson vaccine appointments.
• Passaic County announced that it canceled two days of appointments at the Wanaque vaccine clinic because of the Johnson & Johnson pause.
• Essex County said residents who were scheduled to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in their Kmart and Sears stores will get Moderna instead.
• Somerset County is shifting Moderna allocations to seniors and underserved "closed POD" clinics, but will be suspending the homebound vaccination program until the CDC and FDA complete their review.
• Hudson County announced it will "pause administering the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine out of an abundance of caution" at its sites, the county said Tuesday. The main site in Kearny will keep all scheduled appointments and instead use the Moderna or Pfizer two-shot vaccines. Health Officer Janet Castro said the Johnson & Johnson vaccines will remain in temperature controlled storage units until further notice from NJDOH, CDC and FDA.
• In Monmouth County, hundreds of doses of the vaccine are sitting in inventory as local officials await word for what to do with them.
• In Hoboken, about 120 appointments that were scheduled for Tuesday were rescheduled to a different site that uses one of the other vaccines. Some were postponed altogether.
• The Princeton Health Department received 100 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on Monday and has postponed a vaccination clinic until further notice.
• Ocean Health Initiatives, a federally qualified health center and has seven locations in Monmouth and Ocean counties, said it will only offer the two-dose Moderna vaccine for eligible people in the community until further notice.
• Woodbridge Township's vaccination site is unaffected because it only uses the Moderna vaccine, but the Woodbridge Wegman's primarily used Johnson & Johnson and has paused all of those shots. Appointments are being canceled.
• Those with appointments at the Holy Name Health clinics in Teaneck and West New York won't have to reschedule due to the pause. Instead, officials said they would honor all existing appointments and offer either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.
• Camden County said no appointments will be canceled at its Gloucester Township and Camden clinics since the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines will be offered to anyone who had an appointment to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
• Patients with Hackensack Meridian who were scheduled to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will instead get a Pfizer or Moderna shot, including at the state's Bergen County mega-site
• A Summit community vaccination site run by Atlantic Health will "pause" use of the vaccine, but Atlantic Health said it won't cancel appointments, as the J&J vaccine accounts for less than 1 percent of their shots.
• The state's mega-site in Burlington County said it is unaffected by the pause because it was already only offering Pfizer this week.
• FEMA's vaccination site in Newark, the largest in the state, is unaffected because it currently uses Pfizer. Johnson & Johnson is used at FEMA's mobile vaccine units and community vaccination centers, and that use has been paused.

Johnson & Johnson also responded, saying it was suspending its planned vaccine expansion to Europe. Read more: Johnson & Johnson Delays Vaccine Roll-Out To Europe

In the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, a type of blood clot called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) was seen in combination with low levels of blood platelets (thrombocytopenia).

About 235,000 Johnson & Johnson vaccinations have already been administered in New Jersey, with none of these patients reporting any adverse effects, Murphy said. Read More: NJ Pause Johnson & Johnson COVID Vaccine

"No one who has received this vaccine should panic or worry," Murphy said, calling the pause a "precautionary and smart step.""

Even with this pause, our overall goal of vaccination 4.7 million adult New Jerseyans remains not only in place, but entirely achievable," he said.

On Wednesday, the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet to further review six cases of blood clots that have occurred in women between the ages of 18 and 48, and symptoms occurred 6 to 13 days after vaccination. One woman died, and one woman was in critical condition, officials said.

That meeting will be open to the public, and further decisions on a pause will be based on information that comes out of that meeting and other information and any new cases that emerge in the upcoming days, Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said.

Officials said the risk is very low for anyone who got the Johnson & Johnson vaccination more than a month ago, but anyone who got the vaccine in the last couple of weeks should look for symptoms, contact their doctor and seek medical attention.

Symptoms include severe headaches, abdominal pain and shortness of breath, Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said. Symptoms appear between a week and three weeks after vaccination.

"This is different from the flu-like symptoms many people experience after getting their first shot," Woodcock said.

Officials said the Johnson & Johnson vaccine made up the vast minority of the doses being administered among the three approved vaccines, and it wasn't clear what impact the pause would have on President Joe Biden's goal of reaching 200 million Americans vaccinated in the first 100 days of his presidency.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines remain safe, and residents should continue to get those vaccines, officials said.

"We've had over 180 million doses administered, and there were no reports" of blood clots, FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Peter Marks said.

Altogether, 121 million people have received at least one dose of one of the three vaccines.

"We have not detected this syndrome in the other vaccines, and we have real world evidence of the vaccines' effectiveness," CDC Principal Deputy Director Anne Schuchat said.

To keep up with the latest vaccination news, visit Patch's New Jersey COVID-19 Vaccination Information Hub.

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