And recent news about Guillain-Barré syndrome has led to some concern on social media. The neurological condition has been reported in about 0.0008% of the people who have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. It’s not clear whether those cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome resulted from the vaccine.
Of the 12.8 million Americans who have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, about 100 cases of GBS have been reported, the US Food and Drug Administration said.
A new poll shows why some vaccine-hesitant Americans decided to get the Covid-19 shot. “Each year in the United States, an estimated 3,000 to 6,000 people develop GBS,” the FDA said. “Most people fully recover from the disorder.”
In Arkansas, which has been hit hard by the Delta variant, Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. said he was very reluctant to get vaccinated. He’s never even gotten a flu shot before, the mayor told CNN. But after researching the facts about Covid-19 and the vaccines, he said, he changed his mind.
“Being a Black man and understanding the Tuskegee experiment and the amount of distrust that comes from the Black community as well as the Latino community, it felt like I definitely had to lead the way to ensure that all residents went out and took the shot,” Scott said.
“I did the research and understood the facts,” said the mayor, who is now vaccinated. “It’s serious, and we should not have to allow someone to die for us to really believe the research and science.”
In Mississippi, the state health officer, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, said seven children are in intensive care — and two of them are on ventilators — due to the surge.
It is not immediately clear how these hospitalizations compare with previous surges in Mississippi. On Monday, Dobbs tweeted: “Pretty much ALL cases in MS are Delta variant right now,” adding that the vast majority of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in the last month were among those who are unvaccinated.