Officials predict minor local impacts from vaccine pause April 22nd 4:44 pm | Maggie Nelson, KUCB News
State health officials have asked Alaska vaccine providers to follow federal recommendations to pause the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines due to a clotting risk. More than 7 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine have been administered across the U.S., but a handful of women have gotten a blood clot afterward, prompting the pause. In Unalaska, however, that halt is not expected to have much of an effect on the city's vaccination effort, according to local health officials. "I think in the grand scheme of vaccination, it's not going to change things much," said Megan Sarnecki, medical director and family medicine physician for the Iliuliuk Family and Health Services clinic. "[The pause] came on relatively late. We didn't have very many [Johnson & Johnson] doses. And luckily, we've already given out a lot of vaccinations [in general]."