EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated to reflect that federal agencies Friday evening agreed with an advisory board’s recommendation earlier in the day to allow resumption of Johnson & Johnson vaccinations.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration officials lifted a pause on the use of Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccinations Friday evening. The decision means that inoculations using the J&J vaccine can restart immediately.
The CDC’s immunization advisory board voted Friday afternoon to recommend the resumption of J&J’s COVID-19 vaccine, 10 days after officials paused use of the shots to investigate rare blood clots in some recipients. At the time, however, it was not immediately clear when agency leaders might officially give the nod to allow the J&J inoculations again. It happened just a few hours after the panel’s vote.
The move figures to be a boost to long-term care vaccination efforts, although to what extent might not be known for a while, said industry insiders, who worry that damage to already shaky confidence levels might be difficult to undo.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted 10-4-1 to reaffirm the use of the J&J vaccine in people 18 years or older under the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization.
The vaccine’s label will be updated to carrying a warning about the rare risk of blood clotting risks. In addition, the FDA and the company will create updated communication and education materials in the coming days.
Long-term care pharmacies immediately stopped using the J&J vaccine after the pause was announced last week. Those doses were replaced with Moderna and Pfizer vaccines at LTC pharmacies, according to federal officials.
The return of the J&J vaccine to circulation is a major development for long-term care providers, said Chad Worz, PharmD, chief executive of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists. He said that, overall, nationwide average vaccinations had dropped this week by 500,000 to 700,000 per day.
“That has to be attributed to the pause,” he told McKnight’s Long-Term Care News. “Some pharmacies only received the J&J vaccine to apply to their long-term care populations and those clinics have been put on hold. This has impacted both the community and the long-term care settings.”
He noted that J&J’s return represents a chance to get back to getting as many people vaccinated as possible, “but there will now be some new hesitancy to overcome.”
“Efforts will be made to convince and ‘re-convince’ an already skeptical group,” he added, referring in part to the many long-term care workers who have resisted getting vaccinated thus far.
“The decision to pause, although certainly cautionary, may have caused more harm than good,” he added. “Long term care pharmacies and pharmacists will be reactivated and run back toward the problem, but it will take leadership across disciplines, facilities, states and the nation to educate, convince and get us back on track. We need to respond quickly, loudly and effectively to ensure we don’t lose some willing individuals to this blip in confidence.”
Long-term care stakeholders said the next step is to see if federal and state officials will shift back to allocating the J&J vaccine to the sector, according to a spokeswoman with the American Health Care Association who spoke to McKnight’s on background before the advisory panel’s vote.
She explained the J&J vaccine was “beneficial because the one dose reduces some of the logistical hurdles to vaccinate new residents and hires.”
“We’ll also have to see if vaccine confidence among our population has been impacted by this,” she added.
The day of the initial announcement to pause the J&J vaccinations, AHCA Chief Medical Officer David Gifford, M.D, MPH, painted a dour outlook.
“Unfortunately, today’s development essentially halts vaccinations in long-term care, as the federal government was primarily allocating the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to nursing homes and assisted living communities,” he said at the time. “Without swift action to replace these vaccines, we could see tragic consequences.”
The two major U.S. nursing home associations have set a goal of getting 75% of staff members vaccinated by June 30, a target that many were uncertain about even before the J&J vaccine halt sent ripples through the country.
