Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor. I think it would be good if society accepted more risk from vaccines. I’d also like to see health authorities speak more honestly with the public.

With the FDA recommending a pause of J&J vaccinations, health authorities have been describing the risk of rare blood clots^[1] as “less than one in a million.” So far, close to seven million J&J vaccines have been distributed in the U.S. with six cases of the rare clotting reported.

We shouldn’t conflate two things:

1. The FDA is aware of less than one reported case per million J&J vaccinations.
2. The J&J vaccine comes with an under one-in-a-million risk of a rare blood clot.

Now that everyone knows about the issue, I expect we’ll learn of additional clots that occurred before the FDA announced the pause. Further, the clots are a delayed side effect. So far, they’ve been reported six to thirteen days after vaccination. We’re going to see more over the next two weeks.

I’m guessing the clots are roughly an order of magnitude more common than we’re pretending. Some health authorities in Denmark are already estimating the incidence of similar issues with the AstraZeneca vaccine at one in 40,000.

1. I.e., clots causing cerebral venous sinus thrombosis