Poll: Most support Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause as ‘responsible’

Most Americans support the pause of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine, finding that it is “responsible,” according to an Axios-Ipsos poll released Tuesday.

The poll comes after Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week recommended the pause on the vaccine due to six cases of rare and severe blood clots combined with low blood platelets.

A CDC advisory panel met last week to evaluate the data, but wanted time to gather more evidence on the risk of rare blood clots and its possible link to the vaccine. The decision kept the pause in place for the last week.

The panel is expected to meet again on Friday.

The survey, conducted April 16-19, found that 91 percent of Americans had heard of the pause on the vaccine.

Of those who had heard of the vaccine, 88 percent said they believed the FDA and CDC were “being responsible” by recommending the pause.

There was high bipartisan support for this sentiment, with 91 percent of Democrats and 87 percent of Republicans saying the agencies acted responsibly.

The survey also found that the pause didn’t affect Americans’ likelihood of getting the vaccine. Only 20 percent say they won’t get the vaccine, holding pace from when Axios conducted their survey in January.

Meanwhile, 56 percent said they have already received at least one dose, continuing to increase over the past few months.

After evaluating the data from the U.S., the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) safety panel concluded that the benefits of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine outweighed its risks. However, it said that incidents should be listed as very rare side effects of the vaccine.

The poll interviewed 1,033 adults and has a margin of sampling error of 3.3 percentage points.