A New Jersey man has been hospitalized after testing positive for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) despite receiving the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine less than a month before. His wife said he is in critical condition.
Francisco Cosme, 52, received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at the Javits Center mass vaccination site in New York City on March 6. According to his wife, Laura Eugene, he started feeling sick on April 1. (Related: Mass vaccination site in Colorado shut down after people experience adverse reactions from Johnson & Johnson vaccine.)
"He started to feel like he had a sore throat stuffy, his coughing and then he started to run a fever, started to feel fatigue," said Eugene. "He just gets it every day – just kept on getting a symptom."
Eugene immediately brought her husband to get tested for COVID-19. The test came back positive. His condition deteriorated after a week, and he was rushed to the John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Union City, New Jersey.
As of press time, Cosme is being treated for pneumonia. Doctors are not sure whether his condition will improve with time.
"I think he's more concerned about me, so I try to stay positive so he can see that I'm okay so that he can fight. I need him to fight," said Eugene. "I want to see from now whether he progresses or if he deteriorates – or they just don't know which way, because they can't tell."
Eugene said she and her husband were thrilled when they learned they could get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because it was "one and done." In addition to her husband, Eugene said her son and grandchildren have also tested positive for COVID-19. She said her son and grandchildren visited her home after she and her husband got vaccinated.
Cosme's daughter, Michelle Torres, was with her father after he got vaccinated. She said her father continued to follow social distancing guidelines after receiving the vaccine, but his behavior became erratic soon after. He started becoming "very confused" and did things he would not normally do.
"I'm trying to hold it together, every day you don't know what is happening. The doctor said they did all they can do and it's up to him to fight and up to God," said Torres. "We survived the whole year without [the vaccine. We did all the things we are supposed to do – social distancing, washing hands and masking up… It's crazy and we need answers."
Listen to this special Situation Update breaking news episode of the Health Ranger Report, a podcast by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, as he talks about how the antibodies created by the Johnson & Johnson vaccine cause blood clots in the brain, lungs and heart. He also delves into how the situation caused by this vaccine has gotten so bad that even the Food and Drugs Administration has called for a nationwide halt to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
New Jersey officials say taking the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is still a good idea
Since the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was released, the company's inoculation has been riddled with controversies. At least four different mass vaccination sites had to suspend their events after multiple people experienced adverse reactions.
On April 9, eight people experienced adverse reactions after receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at a mass vaccination event in Forsyth County, Georgia. Another site in Iowa had to be shut down on the same day after reports of adverse reactions.
Two more mass vaccination events, one in Colorado and another in North Carolina, were also shut down. They both used the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
The New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) has been making excuses for Johnson & Johnson. Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli said on Monday during a coronavirus media briefing that the state was aware of Cosme's situation and that it was possible for vaccinated individuals to contract the virus.
"It will happen," she said. "The efficacy could be closer to 100 percent, but there are also a percentage of cases that are either, [they] contracted COVID-19 before they got vaccinated or were exposed afterward and will fall ill."
Eddy Bresnitz, a medical advisor for the NJDOH, echoed Persichilli's statement that the "breakthrough" coronavirus cases are to be expected,
"We know from the pivotal trials – the Phase III trials – that vaccines like the Moderna and the Pfizer vaccine, for example, they prevented – and the Johnson vaccine – prevented severe disease and hospitalizations and deaths," said Bresnitz. "There will be cases of breakthrough disease, if not in New Jersey, throughout the country and elsewhere. They're not likely to be very sick and hospitalized."
New Jersey's Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, said Cosme's case was an outlier and this incident should not scare New Jerseyans from getting vaccinated.
"There are so few cases in Jersey, in the country, in the world where someone has been infected after the vaccine," said Murphy. "I would just not want anyone out there to assume that that's the norm, because it isn't. There's no data at all that suggests that."
Learn more about breakthrough COVID-19 cases, as well as the adverse reactions people have experienced after taking the Johnson & Johnson vaccine by reading the latest articles at Vaccines.news.
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