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The U.S. is pausing the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine over concerns of blood clots.

In a statement on Tuesday morning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration said they were looking into rare blood clots that had occurred in six women after getting the J&J shot. The blood clots happened between six and 13 days after vaccination, and the women were all between the ages of 18 and 48.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is a single-dose shot against COVID-19. Health Canada authorized the vaccine for adults in Canada on March 5.

At a news conference on Tuesday morning, Prime Minister Trudeau said the government is still on track to receive the first shipment of the vaccine, adding that it is following developments closely out of the United States.

“We can assure everyone that Health Canada will, every step of the way, put the health of Canadians first and foremost in any decisions we make around distributing vaccines,” he said. “It also goes to highlight that it was important that we signed deals with a large range of potential vaccine makers because we didn’t know which ones would be most effective, which ones would arrive early.”

Australia has also decided not to buy any of the J&J vaccine for its population.

This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, usually written by Ian Bailey. Menaka Raman-Wilms and Kristy Kirkup are filling in today. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter signup page. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.

TODAY’S HEADLINES

Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said on Monday that 2019 would be the last year of increasing greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, the Minister said the country will begin recording emission declines in 2020.

A Liberal motion has limited the timeline for a study on sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces, with recommendations to the committee needing to be in this week.

The Liberals and Yukon parties are tied with eight seats each after Monday’s Yukon election, setting up the territory for a minority government. One riding where the Liberal and Yukon party tied is scheduled for a recount on Thursday. If the tie persists though, the winner of the riding will have to be decided by drawing lots.

OPINION

André Picard (The Globe and Mail) on why the third wave of COVID-19 has flipped the healthcare script in Canada: “The poor showing of the Western provinces is doubly troubling because they got off relatively lightly in the first wave and were hammered by the far more predictable and preventable second wave.”

Conservative MP Michael Chong (contributed to The Globe and Mail) on why China’s sanctions against him and other individuals must be taken seriously: “The sanctions imposed on me and others are a clumsy attempt to silence our free speech and open debate, both pillars at the heart of our democracy. But they will work if we are silent.”

Michael Smart (The Globe and Mail) on why the government should cut the GST to help the postpandemic recovery: “A GST cut would encourage consumers to go back into stores and to take vacations, thus unlocking some of the extraordinary level of personal savings accumulated during the pandemic.”

John Ivison (National Post) on why a lack of foresight is to blame for public policy failure over COVID: “It is impossible to prove but an intense lockdown during the second wave may have prevented the third. Instead, we got half-hearted efforts from governments that were Janus-faced on the principle of restricting people’s liberties.”

Derek H. Burney (National Post) on why the Supreme Court verdict on the carbon tax is more political than judicial: “The Peace, Order and Good Government (POGG) clause of the Constitution, which is what the majority used to justify its conclusion, is broad enough to encompass whatever jurists decide it should cover.”

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