'We're Following The Recommendation To Pause': Gov. DeSantis Said Florida Will Suspend Use Of Johnson & Johnson Vaccine
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state will follow the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Food and Drug Administration and suspend the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
The recommendation came after six reported US cases of a "rare and severe" type of blood clot.
Speaking at a news conference in Manatee County on Tuesday, DeSantis said he felt the federal recommendation was out of an abundance of caution.
"We have not seen any significant effects with Jonson & Johnson here in Florida. I got the J&J (vaccine), I think my arm was sore for 45 minutes and then that was that. I think the track record thus far in Florida has been good," he said.
All six cases occurred in women between the ages of 18 and 48, the symptoms occurred 6 to 13 days after vaccination, according to a joint statement by the CDC and FDA.
"I don't think people should be worried who've already had it, who haven't had any effects. I think it's likely going to be very effective for you," said DeSantis.
The governor said the vaccine was approved for emergency use and there are other medications that people take every day that have a risk of causing blood clots.
"The physician will tell the patient so the patient can make an informed decision. This is under emergency use. And so yes, there have been trials, it's been approved for emergency use, but it isn't something like that's been used for 10 years. So I think the caution is much more stringent on something like this, then something that may have a much higher risk but is something that is known," said DeSantis.
The six reported cases were among more than 6.8 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine that had been administered in the states.
"I don't think people should be freaking out. Because if you look at it, I think they've done between seven and 10 million J&J shots in the United States so far and you found these six. There's obviously probably some more because you haven't identified any. But it's still a very small number. You also have to balance that against how many people are alive today because they had the J&J vaccine. I mean, there's no question that it has saved lives already," said DeSantis.
He said the same goes for the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.
DeSantis said pausing the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will impact the state's race to vaccinate but not as much as you would think.
"As it stands now, you know, we do have a lot of the Pfizer and Madonna, the J&J production had actually gone down. Last week, we had I think about 300,000 which was the most we'd ever had of J&J. That was going down this week, and next week anyways. Most of those J&J shots were already used. So in terms of availability, I think you're still going to have very robust availability of the vaccine," he said.