Ya I don't think that situation warrants a complete shut down on distribution. 1 death... I mean how many people will end up dying because they are not vaccinated due to it no longer being available?
I agree that a literal 1:1,000,000 chance (right now) is insignificant (who wouldn't, really). However, if the news outlets would have run with deaths and ill effects while the FDA and CDC sit idly by and do "nothing," it would have been orders of magnitude worse for hesitancy issues. The fodder, ill-conceived or not, would have been there for the hardcore anti-vax crowd.
We have such a short attention span, collectively, that a couple weeks' pause isn't going to do much long term. I'm glad these steps were taken. It allows the message to really get out there that our safety really is at the forefront, before profits and self-aggrandizing behavior. Warranted or not, a change in recommended age groups, gender, or both, for receipt of the JnJ vaccine is the likely outcome here. The types of clots seen here occur in about 5/1M in the general population, with a 3:1 occurrence among women. Maybe much ado about nothing, at least the correct people are taking the correct steps.
Also, remember that one of the issues suspected of causing both severe and "long" COVID is the issue of microemboli (essentially multiple capillaries clotting/stroking) leading to multi-system organ failure. While this finding isn't exciting by any means, it may be a product of our natural immunologic response. To date, roughly 130M people have received an mRNA vaccine. 67M of those people have received two doses. We haven't had a safety pause on those yet. It's incredible how safe and effective these vaccines truly are. That's the real message here.
Our hesitancy fears may be a little unfounded, as well. After a bumpy start and pauses galore with AZ, the EU is finally getting on track with their vaccination program, illustrating that the public may soon forget if the cases and deaths from COVID continue at their currently high clip.
