WASHINGTON (NYTIMES) - To federal health officials, asking states on Tuesday (April 13) to suspend use of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine until they can investigate six extremely rare but troubling cases of blood clots was an obvious and perhaps unavoidable move.

But where scientists saw prudence, public health officials saw a delicate trade-off: The blood clotting so far appears to affect just 1 out of every 1 million people injected with the vaccine, and it is not yet clear if the vaccine is the cause. If highlighting the clotting heightens vaccine hesitancy and bolsters conspiracy theorists, the "pause" in the end could ultimately sicken - and even kill - more people than it saves.