The 
Food 
and 
Drug 

Administration and Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention 
issued a joint statement on April 13, 
recommending an immediate pause 
on administering the Johnson and 
Johnson/Janssen COVID-19 vaccine 
“out of an abundance of caution.” The 
ensuing 11-day pause was a result of 
six reported cases in which women 
ranging from 18 to 48 years of age 
experienced severe blood clots — a 
new condition known as thrombosis 
with thrombocytopenia syndrome 
(TTS) — less than two weeks after 
receiving the Johnson and Johnson 
vaccine. By the time the vaccine had 
been brought to a halt, 6.8 million 
doses of the vaccine had already been 
administered in the U.S. 

The J&J vaccine is one of three 

CDC-authorized and recommended 
COVID-19 vaccinations, along with 
the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. 
The J&J vaccine is currently only 
approved for those 18 and over and 
was reported as 66.3% effective in 
clinical trials at preventing COVID-
19 two weeks after vaccination, 
compared to Pfizer and Moderna, 
which were 95% and 94.1% effective 
respectively.

Despite the lower efficacy, the J&J 

vaccine was 100% effective in trials 
against hospitalizations and death 
from COVID-19. Unlike the Pfizer 
and Moderna vaccinations, the J&J 
vaccination does not need to be stored 
at sub-zero temperatures and is 
administered in one shot rather than 
two. The single required shot makes 
administration 
and 
distribution 

easier for communities with limited 
access to health resources and may 
be more attractive to individuals with 
needle anxiety or busy schedules.

Less than a week before the 

recommended pause of the J&J 
vaccine, University President Mark 
Schlissel sent out an email to the 
campus community announcing that 
7,500 doses of the J&J vaccine would 
be available for students to receive at 
locations across the three University 
of Michigan campuses at no cost.

After the recall was announced, 

student appointments for the J&J 
vaccine were either switched to Pfizer 

vaccine or cancelled altogether.

On April 23, Martino Harmon, vice 

president of student life, announced 
that being fully vaccinated against 
COVID-19 would be required for 
all students living in on-campus 
housing for the Fall 2021 semester. 
The University said students are 
considered fully vaccinated two 
weeks after receiving a single dose 
vaccine — like J&J — or two weeks 
after receiving the second shot in a 
two-dose vaccine series.

On that same day, the FDA and 

CDC put out an additional statement 
lifting the pause on the J&J vaccine, 
publicly reaffirming that it is both safe 
and effective. 

As of May 14, including the six 

reported cases before the pause, there 
have been 28 total confirmed cases of 
TTS — six of them males. All of them 
were individuals who had recently 
received the J&J vaccine, and three 
patients died as a result.

Campus 
community 
remains 

confident in Johnson and Johnson 
vaccine safety

Although there were concerns 

regarding the J&J vaccine’s safety 
after the recall, a national poll 
conducted by the de Beaumont 
Foundation reported that 76% of 
those surveyed were just as likely 
to get a COVID-19 vaccine as they 
were before the pause. Additionally, a 
Kaiser Family Foundation poll found 
that only 18% of Hispanic women, 
11% of Black men and 7% of white 
women said the news regarding the 
TTS cases made them less likely to get 
vaccinated.

U-M students have also expressed 

minimal concern about the recall 
of J&J or campus vaccination 
requirements. As of May 13, Michigan 
Medicine had administered over 
126,000 COVID-19 vaccines with no 
signs of slowing down. 

LSA sophomore Sophie Rogoff 

received the J&J vaccine prior to the 
recall and said she has no concerns 
about the safety of the vaccine. She 
mentioned her experience with 
using birth control, which the FDA 
states has between a 0.09% and 0.3% 
chance of causing blood clots. The 
risk of developing TTS after receiving 
the J&J vaccine is significantly lower 
than the blood clots occasionally 
caused by birth control. 

3

Thursday, May 20, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com NEWS

University of Michigan President 

Mark Schlissel announced on Apr. 23 
that any students who decide to live in 
on-campus housing for the 2021-2022 
school year must be fully vaccinated 
to be eligible for housing. Students 
planning to live in the residence halls 
must provide proof of vaccination by 
July 15, barring limited exemptions 
that have not yet been laid out.

A large contingent of higher 

education institutions have set forth 
vaccination requirements for their 
students, while other universities 
and colleges are reluctant to mandate 
vaccines due to legal and ethical 
reasons. 

In an email to The Michigan 

Daily, Dr. Robert Ernst, Associate 
Vice President for Student Life and 
Executive Director of the University 
Health Service, wrote that the 
University will accept COVID-19 
vaccinations 
that 
are 
approved 

by the United States Food and 
Drug Administration or the World 
Health Organization. The accepted 
vaccines currently include the Pfizer 
BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & 
Johnson/Janssen, and AstraZeneca 
(Covishield) vaccines.

The 
University 
recommends 

that all students, regardless of living 
location, upload proof of their COVID-
19 vaccination to Wolverine Access 
before the beginning of the fall 
semester. Ernst said this information 
will be used to inform plans for the 
fall. 

Ernst said that Michigan Housing 

is working on a specific plan for how 
exemptions will be managed and 
will share this information soon. 
Students who are vaccinated will not 
be required to adhere to on-campus 
testing requirements in the fall 
semester.

“This (vaccine) information will 

be used to protect our community in 
many ways, including waived testing 
and quarantine requirements, social 
distancing needs, public health-
informed housing decisions and 
administrative planning,” Ernst said.

Professor Emeritus Peter Jacobson, 

professor of health law and policy, said 
that although the vaccines did not 
go through the normal three-phase 
process of approval, they are still safe 
and effective. 

“Nothing is perfect, but just think of 

it this way: a little over a year ago, the 

hope was that in two years, we would 
have a vaccine that might be effective 
at the 50% level,” Jacobson said. “We 
now have, in one year, a vaccine that’s 
effective in the 95% level.” 

Regardless of the public concern, 

Jacobson said the vaccine mandate at 
the University will protect the overall 
community as long as the University 
gives students and staff of different 
socioeconomic backgrounds equal 
access to the vaccine. Jacobson said 
he is a firm believer in vaccinating 
everyone, with the exception of 
certain students and staff due to 
medical reasons. 

“You’re in a small community,” 

Jacobson said. “You’re in dorms, 
you’re in classes, you’re exposing 
professors. You’re exposing U-M 
staff. It seems to me that the 
University has every right to protect 
itself.”

Some critics argue that vaccine 

mandates are a violation of the 
Nuremberg 
code, 
which 
was 

created after World War II to 

protect people from non-consensual 
experimentation. 
Jacobson 
said 

the vaccines are not experimental 
because there is concrete evidence the 
vaccines are not harmful to human 
beings. 

“How do you then have so few side 

effects after millions of doses — after 
a hundred million doses — in the U.S., 
two hundred million shots in the 
U.S.?” Jacobson said.

J. Scott Roberts, professor of health 

behavior and health education, said 
each university should set policies 
according to the needs of their specific 
community. One example of this, 
according to Roberts, is the execution 
of soft mandates, where colleges set 
consequences for students and staff 
who do not get vaccinated, such as 

increased testing and mask wearing. 

“Given the politicized environment 

we’re in, there is this threat of backlash 
and I think before we go there, we 
should consider there’s a lot of options 
on a continuum here,” Roberts said. 

Additionally, Roberts said, clear 

and early communication to all 
campus community members is 
vital to the peaceful enforcement of 
vaccine requirements on the U-M 
campus.

“Historically, there was great 

trust in government public health, 
and even reasonable trust in the 
pharmaceutical industry not so long 
ago, but you think both of those 
actors have suffered from a loss of 
public trust,” Roberts said. 

International Students
Even if international students 

arriving on campus in the fall are 
unable to get vaccinated in their home 
country, Ernst said the University will 
provide easy access to vaccination. 
The University has partnered with 
Michigan Medicine, the Washtenaw 

County Health Department and 
several local pharmacies to help the 
campus community get vaccinated. 
Ernst said students who arrive on 
campus 
unvaccinated, 
including 

international students who were 
not able to get vaccinated before the 
fall, will be expected to undergo 
surveillance testing until they are 
fully vaccinated.

At the time of publication, 12.2% 

of people living in China have been 
vaccinated against COVID-19. China 
is using the Sinopharm vaccine, 
which has a lower efficacy rate than 
the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. In 
2020, there were 3,493 Chinese-born 
students enrolled at U-M.

U-M community reacts to the COVID-19 vaccine 

mandate for students in on-campus housing

It’s been one month since the FDA 

paused the Johnson & Johnson 

vaccine: Here’s how vaccine
hesitancy has been impacted

JUSTIN O’BEIRNE, LIZ HWANG & 

ISABELLE REGENT
Daily Staff Reporters

EMILY BLUMBERG & 
MADELEINE BAUER

Daily Staff Reporters

Read more at michigandaily.com
Read more at michigandaily.com

TESS CROWLEY/Daily

Students and staff following COVID-19 precautions in Bursley Hall.

