So Long, J&J Vaccine; Another Insurance Carrier Pulls Out of the State–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: June 5, 2023

Indy Digest: June 5, 2023

I’ll never forget how I felt as I walked into the Annenberg Health Sciences Building at Eisenhower Medical Center on that sunny March 2021 day.

I was nervous, excited and relieved all at once: After a year of fear and loss, I was finally getting my COVID-19 vaccine. That day, Eisenhower was administering the single-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine, so that’s what I got.

Of course, we now know that the J&J shot would wind up being the most problematic of the three widely available vaccines, due to a (very slight) elevated risk of blood clots. The other two vaccine-makers would later come out with updated versions of the vaccines, while J&J would not. (A fourth vaccine, by Novavax, would also be approved.)

Now, the J&J vaccine is officially no more in the United States.

According to the FDA. “On May 22, 2023, Janssen Biotech, Inc. requested the voluntary withdrawal of the emergency use authorization (EUA) of the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine. Janssen Biotech, Inc. informed the FDA that the last lots of the vaccine purchased by the U.S. government have expired, there is no demand for new lots of the vaccine in the U.S., and they do not intend to update the strain composition of this vaccine to address emerging variants. On June 1, 2023, FDA revoked the EUA for this vaccine.”

While the J&J vaccine was much-maligned, it turns out that in some ways, it got a bad rap. Some studies indicated that the protection it offered against SARS-CoV-2 lasted longer than the protection offered by the mRNA vaccines—and was also more durable against the COVID-19 variants that started to pop up.

I didn’t get COVID-19 (that I know of) until June 2022—15 months after I received that J&J shot, and it’s likely the protection the vaccine offered played a role in that. So tonight, as I pour myself a Manhattan after a long Monday workday, I’ll be toasting the Johnson and Johnson vaccine and the people who produced it.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Another major insurance carrier has joined State Farm in no longer offering new home-insurance policies in California. The Los Angeles Times reports: “Allstate Corp. has told the state Department of Insurance that it stopped selling new home insurance policies last year. The notice was part of a recent request for a nearly 40% rate increase for home and business property and casualty insurance. The move by the two insurers—State Farm was California’s largest property insurer and Allstate was fourth as of 2021—could worsen what the FAIR Plan, a state-mandated insurance pool, has called an ‘impending insurance unavailability crisis.’ ‘We have a lot of people going naked, which means they have no insurance,’ said Bill Dodd, a Democratic state senator representing fire-scarred Napa County and other parts of Northern California. ‘What my constituents want is insurance.’” The FAIR Plan, which offers minimal coverage at high rates, is meant to be a provider of last resort, but enrollments have surged 70% since 2019 to 272,846 homes in 2022.”

• Elsewhere in Riverside County … the Temecula school board is refusing a textbook because its support materials—not even the textbook itself—mention Harvey Milk. The Press-Enterprise says: “School board President Joseph Komrosky, who opposed the book, called Milk ‘a pedophile.’ In response, the Temecula teachers union staged a rally and plans another before the next Temecula Valley school board meeting Tuesday, June 13. Last month, Temecula Valley Unified School District officials brought the adoption of a book called Social Studies Alive to the board and recommended it be approved for students in first through fifth grades for eight years. … But members of the board’s new conservative Christian majority raised concerns about the materials that go with the book, which mention Milk in optional supplemental resources. Milk, the subject of a 2008 film starring Sean Penn, isn’t in the actual textbook that children would have seen, Anna Tapley, Temecula Valley’s director of curriculum, instruction and assessment, told the board.”

• Tennessee’s anti-drag law has been rejected by a conservative judge. The Associated Press reports: “The law is both ‘unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad’ and encouraged ‘discriminatory enforcement,’ according to the ruling late Friday by U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. ‘There is no question that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. But there is a difference between material that is “obscene” in the vernacular, and material that is “obscene” under the law,’ Parker said. ‘Simply put, no majority of the Supreme Court has held that sexually explicit—but not obscene—speech receives less protection than political, artistic, or scientific speech,’ he said. The law would have banned adult cabaret performances from public property or anywhere minors might be present. Performers who broke the law risked being charged with a misdemeanor or a felony for a repeat offense.”

• The owner of two large downtown San Francisco hotels has decided to more or less give them back to the bank. ABC 7 News reports: “Another blow is being dealt to downtown San Francisco. The investment firm that owns Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 hotels is walking away from its debt and surrendering them to its lender. Park Hotels & Resorts has opted to cease payments on a $725 million loan, according to a press release. … The 1,921-room Hilton San Francisco Union Square is the city’s largest hotel, occupying an entire city block. Parc 55 has 1,024 rooms. The firm cited the continued debt burden of the two hotels on its portfolio and multiple factors that have made the San Francisco market less desirable for their business. The SF Hotel Council said in a statement that the hotels will stay open for business.”

• Palm Springs’ mayor will be leading a trip to a new “sister city” later this summer. According to a news release: “The Palm Springs Sister City Board of Directors (www.sistercitiesps.org) will embark on a four-day trip to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, from August 3-6, 2023, to celebrate the second official signing of the sister city agreement between the two cities. The trip will also include cultural and educational activities, as well as opportunities to strengthen the ties of friendship and cooperation between the two municipalities. … The delegation to San Miguel will be led by Palm Springs Mayor Grace Garner, members of the Palm Springs Sister City Board of Directors and area community, business, hospitality and cultural representatives. … While the City of San Miguel and affiliated businesses will host the delegation while there, all costs for transportation and incidentals for Mayor Garner, and the Palm Springs delegation, will be paid for privately by monies raised by the Sister City Delegation and its supporters.”

• The state and the feds are moving in different directions regarding work requirements for people receiving welfare. Our partners at CalMatters report: “Included in a recent state Assembly budget proposal, and in a bill the Assembly passed on Wednesday, is a plan to remake CalWORKs, the state’s federally funded cash welfare program that requires recipients to work or search for jobs using a list of approved activities. Under the proposed state changes, recipients would gain greater flexibility to participate in activities such as going to school, domestic violence counseling, addiction treatment or mental health care. The proposal, estimated to cost $100 million, also would lessen financial penalties if recipients violate work rules. … The (debt-ceiling deal) includes changes in federal welfare rules that would make it harder for California to make its work rate meet federal targets. Failing to meet that work metric could cost the state $185 million out of the $3.7 billion a year it gets in federal welfare grants.”

• And finally … Palm Springs Police Chief Andy Mills and the PSPD’s LGBTQ Outreach Committee will be having a community meeting at 5 p.m. tomorrow, Tuesday, June 6, at Hunters, 302 E. Arenas Road. While Mills has personally been a visible and ever-present ally to the LGBTQ+ community, expect some attendees to bring up the recent arrest of a man accused of sexually assaulting someone he met on a sex app—an arrest that some say should have been made much sooner, as others have also come forward to say they were assaulted.

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