Thread by @BauerJournalism

Arwady: None of the 6 reports of blood clots potentially linked to J&J vaccine are in Chicago or Illinois.
"We've been looking in our records and not seen anything of concern related to blood clots or related to platelets locally here." ...

https://twitter.com/ChiPublicHealth/status/1382000691539931136

Chicago wants to pause so clinicians know to look for this as a potentially rare side effect.

Arwady: They are seeing rare instances of low platelets. Also seeing rare instances of blood clots.

"It's pretty unusual to have blood clots in combination with low platelets ... ." The blood clots were in people's brains, which is serious. One woman died. One seriously ill.
...

"Even though this is rare, in this case, having seen 6 cases of people having this blood clot in a severe area, combined with having low platelets, these two rare events together, was unusual enough that the CDC and FDA made the decision to put further vaccination on hold ...

"while they investigate further. This doesn't mean that we will never administer Johnson & Johnson vaccine again. It doesn't mean this will be indefinite. But they will want to understand: Was there something these women had in common that maybe made them more at risk for ...

this? We don't know for sure this was related to the vaccine ... ."

Arwady: The other reason why they made the decision to make this announcement is because typically if someone has a clot, there's a common medication — heparin — that you'd start people on to break up the clot and get blood flowing. But when someone has low platelets, you ...

can't give them heparin. It could be dangerous.

So they wanted to get that information out for doctors. She thinks that was the right choice.

Arwady: "You should not be severely worried at all if you got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Again, this is very, very rare, and there's nothing you need to do differently." Monitor your health.
...

If you get severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain or shortness of breath within 3 weeks, these all could be signs of a blood clot and you should seek medical care and tell the provide you had the J&J vaccine.

Arwady: This is the right thing to do to understand if there is a link between the vaccine and the blood clots/low platelets.

Arwady: "I fully, fully know that people will feel nervous about vaccines regardless of which one they got. I want to be really clear that, in no way, is this related to Moderna vaccines or Pfizer vaccines. ...

"The federal government has been looking really closely and they had zero reports of this condition in anybody who got" Moderna or Pfizer (180 million doses administered).

Arwady: This is somewhat similar to what we've been seeing in Europe with the AstraZeneca vaccine. AstraZeneca and J&J are made in a similar way, which is *not* how Pfizer and Moderna are made.

Arwady heavily encourages people who have gotten a first shot of Pfizer/Moderna to go back for their second shot.

Arwady: You do need your second shot to reach the highest levels of protection.

Arwady: "Keep your Moderna appointments. Keep your Pfizer appointments."

Arwady: "I know it's very scary to hear about ... these 6 women getting blood clots among the millions, but we also have seen so, so many bad outcomes from COVID itself. ... Particularly with the Moderna and Pfizer, there is no signal there are" safety concerns with that.

Arwady: "I have every confidence. This in no way has changed my opinion at all about Moderna or Pfizer. And they do use a different mechanism than J&J."

Arwady: "Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have been the predominant vaccines for a number of months."

Last week, Chicago got 40,000 doses of J&J. This week, we were getting fewer than 5,000.

"We did have a lot of plans for [J&J], which are on pause for now ... ."

Arwady: City was using J&J for homebound people. Pausing the program now.

"The homebound program will be on pause — again, I expect this to be a relatively shortterm pause while the scientists look at the data ... ."

Arwady: There's been a lot of demand for J&J. They've used it at some sites, like at O'Hare, and that's on hold.

They were using it at CSU, and they will be "putting that on hold or potentially switching that to Pfizer or Moderna."

...

"We don't have vaccine sitting on shelves; we push it all out. ... But I'm really committed, particularly to that Chicago State site, because it's on the Far South Side, one of the regions where we're seeing slower vaccination uptake."

...

This also affects work with some employers/unions. CDPH is reaching out to let them know those are on hold. "Any Johnson & Johnson doses are on pause while we get some more information."

Arwady: "I expect not just in the city but across the country, we'll see some drop in the rate of vaccinations as a result of this. ... When we get some more details, we'll see what that means."

Arwady: Some people have tested positive after being fully vaccinated, but no one has gotten seriously ill. A large portion are asymptomatic.

Arwady: They do flag "breakthrough cases" for additional review to check for variants, etc.

Arwady: "I guarantee nowhere in the country is anybody reusing any syringes for vaccine. It is a No. 1 rule when it comes to vaccination that you must use a new syringe for every person."

Arwady: When CDPH delivers vaccine, they include the appropriate syringes, needles, etc.

Arwady: You can't give Moderna or J&J to anyone younger than 18.

Pfizer just submitted its first data for kids 12 and older. "The preliminary information looked very good."

Arwady: I am very hopeful that Moderna will soon have the data for adolescents to submit. Getting this vaccine to pediatricians and the network for vaccinating kids/teens is "critical."

Arwady: She is confident we'll be able to vaccinate adolescents this summer. But we're still waiting for trials to finish.

Arwady: B.1.1.7 not yet dominant in Chicago, though they estimate more than half of all cases are a variant of one kind or another (with B.1.1.7 being most common among those variants).

We are seeing P.1 variant.

Arwady: "Our goal, always, vaccine safety," efficacy and being transparent.