Collins Aerospace/Hy-Vee Vaccination Event Canceled

Event, "“will be rescheduled at a later date.”

Linn County Public Health announced a cancelation of a special vaccination event for today and tomorrow at Collins Aerospace in conjunction with Hy-Vee. 

Citing a Centers for Disease Control pause in Johnson & Johnson inoculations, the Department advised the event, “will be rescheduled at a later date.” Persons with appointments for either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines are not affected, “and should plan to keep your appointment as scheduled,” according to the press release.

The pause comes after the CDC received six reported cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis in six female Johnson & Johnson vaccine recipients. All six patients also had low blood platelet counts. Victim ages ranged from eighteen to forty-eight with symptoms appearing between one and three weeks after inoculation. To date healthcare workers provided 6.8 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. 

CVST is a rare form of blood clot blocking a vein preventing blood from exiting the brain. Johns Hopkins Medical Center reports, “about 5 people in 1 million each year,” or .0005 percent suffer this event each year. The Food and Drug Administration’s Dr.Peter Marks puts the number between 2 and 14 people per million, “but those are people with normal blood platelet counts,” he said. 

Though not having a specific number, Marks said, “this type of a combination, low platelets and blood clots, has been very rarely seen in the past.”

In contrast, 0.000086 percent of Johnson & Johnson vaccine recipients were diagnosed with this clot. Importantly, one percent of Iowans in this age group lost their lives to the coronavirus disease according to the Iowa Department of Public Health.

Marks said the blood clots and low platelet counts combined, “makes a pattern,” calling this pattern, “very, very similar to what was seen in Europe,” with the AstraZenca vaccine. 

This pause comes, “out of an abundance of caution,” said Acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock, so the agency can, “fully understand these events.”

Recognizing this pause, “is going to be very concerning,” to those already vaccinated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the CDC’s Principal Deputy Director Dr. Anne Schuchat said, this pause allows both the FDA and CDC, “to prepare the healthcare system to recognize and treat patients appropriately and to report severe events they may be seeing.”

“For people who got the vaccine more than a month ago, the risk to them is very low,” said Dr. Schuchat. “For people who recently got the vaccine, within the last couple of weeks, they should be aware of the symptoms.”

Symptoms requiring physician evaluation include a severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain or shortness of breath.  

Importantly, administration of the Johnson & Johnson is not prohibited. If doctors and their patients decided the benefit far outweighs the risk, the vaccine can still be given.