AUSTIN, Texas — It was just one week ago that Anna Henderson of Cedar Park got her Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine dose through her hematologist's office.
"My hematologist's office called me and asked me if I wanted to go ahead and proceed with getting the shot. And I jumped on it," she told KVUE Tuesday.
Excited, she took a picture with her vaccination card and even happily chronicled her experience through a TikTok video.
"I felt pretty confident about it initially," she said.
But that confidence wasn't without some hesitancy from Henderson, a former medical assistant. She has a platelet disorder called central thrombocytopenia.
"So my bone marrow creates too many platelets, so I'm at high risk for blood clots," she said.
Blood clots are why the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended a pause on the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on Tuesday.
The agencies and doctors note that the blood clots are rare. The CDC and FDA said they are looking into cases of six women between 18 and 48 years old who experienced the clots. More than 6.8 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in the U.S.
"It kind of just made me a little nervous," Henderson said, noting that she only experienced muscle aches the day after receiving her vaccine and she has felt fine since. "Just be aware of your current symptoms and situations and be open for communication with your provider for sure."
Reassurance from doctors
Doctors are continuing to reassure people how rare the cases of these adverse side effects are.
The CDC and medical professionals alike continue to encourage those who get a dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to keep an eye out for any symptoms that occur, including particularly severe headaches, abdominal pain, leg pain or shortness of breath.
Additionally, the CDC notes that if you got the shot more than a month ago, your risk is low, but if you got the shot within the last few weeks, make sure you continue to monitor symptoms.
"This is a, one case in a million or six cases in six million. [It] is a very low number. COVID-19 is a lot more deadly than that," said Dr. Charles Lerner, an infectious disease physician that is also on the Texas Medical Association COVID-19 Task Force. "So, it's a very uncommon event. But out of the appropriate caution, the FDA has put a hold or made a recommendation and [the] CDC has made a recommendation to put a hold on this until we can assess it."
While Lerner noted that he's not an expert on the clotting mechanism, he said a lot of diseases are associated with an increased propensity to clot. Overall, he said it's not common to see rare side effects with vaccines.
"Any medication, any vaccine has a complication rate," he said, adding, "You just have to understand the relative risks of what you're doing and the relative risks of not doing what you were thinking about. And the relative risk of not getting an immunization is orders of magnitude greater than the risk of getting an immunization."
KVUE also spoke to Dr. Payal Kohli, who touched on the rarity of the blood clots as well.
"Please don't panic because the likelihood is literally one in a million," she said.
She added that she encourages people to continue monitoring their symptoms if they got the vaccine less than three weeks ago. However, she did have advice pertaining to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine moving forward.
"If you're going to schedule a Johnson & Johnson vaccine, I might give a timeout on that and I might tell my young female patients to hold off until we hear more from the CDC and FDA about really how safe this vaccine is," she said. "And the good news is we got plenty of other great vaccines that have not been associated with this complication like the Moderna and Pfizer, so I would try to get in for one of those instead."
The potential impact on logistics
The pause of the vaccine also calls into question how it might impact providers' ability to administer the shot.
Johnson & Johnson only requires one dose, while Moderna and Pfizer require two doses several weeks apart.
"I think, broadly speaking, the J&J was kind of a tool that a lot of folks saw as this is going to make it easy to reach difficult to reach populations. And so, the news of Johnson & Johnson being paused is, is not good news for the vaccine rollout and the effort to get folks vaccinated," said Matt Worthington, the senior project manager of data initiatives at the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs. "I mean, obviously, I think they're operating out of an abundance of caution ... No one's going to fault them for that."
Worthington explained that generally speaking, taking away a single-dose vaccine could create a logistical hurdle because it only requires one appointment.
"Because now we've got two-dose vaccines only. And so, that, that kind of puts us back at a place where, 'Alright, we've got to think through more logistics. And how are we going to get these two-dose vaccines into communities, not just once, but getting those folks back in the door two times?'" he said.
Worthington also played a role in developing the LBJ School's COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker, which includes official data like how far away many Texans live from main vaccination hubs.
Citing State data, among other sources, the tracker shows that approximately 5.6 million Texans live 30 or more minutes from a vaccination hub, while approximately 2 million Texans live 30 or more minutes from a pharmacy.
"I think what the data suggests is that if you are a person that has resources, if you have flexibility in your schedule, you can take that time off on a dime to go get a vaccine, that may not be much of an issue for you. However, I think that for folks that, again, do not have those resources, that getting to a vaccine is going to be problematic. And now, because of the news of Johnson & Johnson not being available, right, it's going to be even harder because those folks are not going to only have to find that time once, but they're going to have to find that time twice. And so, I think that that it is concerning," he said.
He added, however, that he believes the process to register for a vaccine appointment should be made easier.
A spokesperson for Travis County told KVUE Tuesday that the near-weekly vaccination operations at the Circuit of the Americas will not be impacted.
A spokesperson for Austin Public Health told KVUE that while the agency administers Johnson & Johnson's vaccine, it's a very limited amount in comparison to its mass vaccination sites and the agency has paused its use of that particular vaccine for now.
H-E-B also told KVUE that it is suspending its use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine until further direction is provided.
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