FactCheck.org sheds light on the J & J vaccine pause and recent Tucker Carlson comments about Dr. Anthony Fauci

FactCheck.org takes a critical look at some recent coronavirus vaccine-related news and commentary, including Fox News talker Tucker Carlson's comments about Dr. Anthony Fauci and masking, and the current pause in administering the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

"All of the authorized Covid-19 vaccines are effective at preventing symptomatic disease," report Eugene Kiely and Saranac Hale Spencer of FactCheck, a service of the communications school at the University of Pennsylvania. "Carlson baselessly casts doubt on the effectiveness of the vaccines, because federal officials urge fully vaccinated people to wear masks in public settings."

On April 14, Carlson "repeatedly questioned why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that vaccinated people continue to wear masks, insinuating that vaccinated people aren't really protected from future infections, and that Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has not or could not address this 'most basic of all questions,' as Carlson called them," FactCheck reports.

Fauci has repeatedly addressed this question, noting that the vaccines are proven to keep people from becoming seriously ill with Covid-19, but may not protect them from becoming infected with the coronavirus and suffering mild symptoms and transmitting it to others. At a recent White House briefing, "Fauci said vaccinated people are not expected to show any symptoms and science needs to conduct more research on whether asymptomatic vaccinated people can make other unvaccinated people sick," Kiely and Spencer report.

FactCheck also lays out the facts on the recommended pause in administering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Out of 7.2 million doses of the vaccine administered in the U.S., six recipients have had a rare, severe type of blood clot. Out of an abundance of caution, the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC recommended a pause in the use of the J&J vaccine while more research was done.

"All six cases involved women ages 18 to 48 and their symptoms — which included severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain or shortness of breath — occurred six to 13 days after they received the J&J vaccine, the agencies said in a joint statement. One died and one remains in critical condition," Kiely and Jaramillo report. "The recommended pause only involves the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which uses a different type of vaccine technology than the other two vaccines that have been authorized in the United States and administered in much greater numbers." Read more here.