Hoosier Health Officials Discuss Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 Vaccine Pause

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STATE WIDE--If you've got a COVID-19 shot planned and it's the Johnson and Johnson, one-shot vaccine, it is on pause for now. But, the Moderna vaccine will be used instead.

The Indiana Department of Health said Tuesday morning that it was pausing all use of the shot.

The department said in a news release they had received no notification from the CDC or federal government was received, but they were pausing out of an abundance of caution after the CDC said it was recommending a pause over reports that some people had developed blood clotting problems.

Only six people across the country were reported sick with the trouble.

"I think we're going to have to see how long this pause lasts, whether they will come out with a recommendation that this is something we have to monitor for or whether it's actually going to be paused for a long time," said Dr. Lindsay Weaver, chief medical officer with the department, at a Tuesday morning press conference outside IMS. 

"We really need people to get vaccinated, which ever vaccine that they have available to them," she said. "We are seeing an increase in our cases. We're watching for an increase in hospitalizations. We know that the variants are here in Indiana and across or entire country."

Dr. Paul Calkins, an associate chief medical executive at IU Health, told WISH-TV that it's not out of the ordinary for the rollout of any newly released drug or vaccine to be halted because of questions that arise after it's been released.

"I think that this is an example of the FDA doing what it is supposed to do. They located a question, they decided they wanted to check the question and answer it," Calkins said.

Calkins said 900,000 Americans suffer from blood clots for other reasons every year and around 100,000 of them die. So he said you shouldn't worry yet if you have already gotten the shot.

He added that studies have shown blood clotting is actually a greater risk for women who use hormonal birth control.