A decision to lift the suspension of administering the Johnson & Johnson suspension might occur on Friday, said White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci on ABC’s “This Week.”
“I would think that we’re not going to go beyond Friday in the expansion of this pause,” Fauci told “This Week” Co-Anchor Martha Raddatz.
“But no indication they will stop using it?” Raddatz asked Fauci.
“I really don’t think so, Martha,” Fauci responded. “I believe we’ll get back with it and there might be some restrictions. Not sure what that will be, whether they’ll be age or sex or whether they’ll just come back with a warning of some sort.”
The Biden administration and federal regulators have repeatedly said that the suspension of administering the J&J vaccine shows that the system is working to ensure vaccines are safe and will have a little to no impact on the nation’s vaccine rollout.
The initial pause was initiated to investigate the cause of extremely rare blood clots in women who received the J&J vaccine.
However, those assurances are not silencing the backlash from state and local officials who are worried the suspension will lead to an increase in vaccine hesitancy as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are on the rise again.
The weekly daily average of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. is just below 70,000, up 7.7% from the previous week, according to Johns Hopkins University. On Friday alone, the U.S. reported about 80,000 new cases.
During a heated exchange on Capitol Hill Thursday, Fauci told lawmakers that the U.S. must get its infection rate below 10,000 new daily cases before it could safely lift COVID-19 restrictions.
This is a developing news story. Please check back for updates.
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