An advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declined to make any new recommendations on the use of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, which will remain paused as the investigation into rare reports of severe blood clots continues.
Many of the experts on the committee said they did not have enough information at this time to make a decision, particularly while the other two Covid-19 vaccines authorized in the U.S. are widely available and have no such safety concerns.
It will be at least a week until the panel is scheduled to reconvene.
"We do need to better understand the risk, which we know is going to be very rare, very low, but we really don't know exactly how low," or how best to treat the cases, Dr. Beth Bell, a member of the advisory panel and a clinical professor in the department of global health at the University of Washington in Seattle, said during the meeting Wednesday.
Most experts agreed that the continued pause on Johnson & Johnson's use should not be indefinite, and would like to reconvene within the coming weeks to make a decision.