Classes Canceled as Teachers, Staff ‘Ill From the Effects of the Vaccine’: NH School District Superintendent

A vial of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine is displayed at South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore, N.Y., on March 3, 2021. Mark Lennihan/ AP Photo

A school district in New Hampshire canceled school on Monday when too many staff called in sick after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine the day before, Superintendent Kathleen Murphy said in a message to parents.

“Early this morning, after receiving communication from our building Principals, I made the decision to close school for the day,” Murphy said. “This decision was the result of a significant number of staff who became ill from the effects of the vaccine they received on Sunday.”

“The District just did not have enough substitutes or personnel to cover classrooms and common areas,” she added.

More than half of the staff at Concord School District received the one-dose Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine. The rest of the staff will be vaccinated on March 28 with the announcement of which vaccine will be given two days prior.

The district said that they were not able to request a specific date for the mass vaccination, which was decided by the state.

Some staff members on the district’s Facebook site shared their reactions to the vaccine.

One woman wrote, “I had the J&J and 10 hrs after I got it I felt like crap for 12 hours then was fine.”

Another said, “I got it yesterday at 930 am and this morning at 2 I felt like I got hit by a Mac truck! Hits everyone so differently.”

While a third woman wrote, “Mine didn’t start until about 8 hours later—still not great.”

A vial of the Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine is seen at Northwell Health's South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore, N.Y., on March 3, 2021. Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

J&J didn’t respond to a request for comment.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Concord School District had a total of 724 staff members during the 2018-2019 school year.

The J&J COVID-19 vaccine became the third vaccine granted an emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Feb. 27 for use in adults 18 and older.

“The Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine is an unapproved vaccine that may prevent COVID-19. There is no FDA-approved vaccine to prevent COVID-19,” the FDA said in its Fact Sheet for Recipients and Caregivers.

The J&J vaccine is a viral vector vaccine, meaning it uses “a modified version of a different virus [not the CCP virus] to deliver important instructions to our cells” to make the spike protein to trigger our immune system to make antibodies.

The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus causes the disease COVID-19.

Some of the common adverse reactions reported in J&J’s clinical trial include headache, fatigue, body pain, fever, and injection site pain, redness, and swelling. “Severe allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis” have also been reported.

More than 82 million Americans have received one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, with over 44 million fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.