How the Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause is affecting UK students and others in KY

Kentucky’s decision to temporarily stop administering Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine had an immediate impact on a handful of vaccine clinics in Lexington and a few thousand residents across the state.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was being used at several local clinics in Lexington, including the University of Kentucky’s student clinic, the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department’s weekly clinic and the clinics for homeless residents at the Catholic Action Center.

“In an abundance of caution, the University of Kentucky will temporarily pause administering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at the Gatton Student Center site, following recommendations this morning by the federal government,” UK said in a statement.

The university and its affiliate locations will continue to dole out the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.

A short-term pause means clinics — and those seeking a vaccine — may have to deal with unfulfilled appointments if alternatives aren’t readily available. Gov. Andy Beshear said people who have an appointment scheduled four or five days out should “keep them for the moment” because use of the vaccine is likely to resume soon.

“We will see,” he said. “We should have more information tomorrow once they meet. If it’s (Tuesday or Wednesday), probably the next day, it’s not going to happen. J&J can’t be administered during that time.”

Beshear added that those with appointments in the next couple of days should contact the vaccine provider to see if Pfizer or Moderna alternatives are available. There are no similar concerns with Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

For people who have scheduled appointments to get one of the two-dose vaccines, “we need you to continue to keep your appointments,” Beshear said. “Bottom line is, we still have to defeat this pandemic.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked states to immediately pause their rollouts of the single-dose vaccine after six women developed serious blood clotting within roughly two weeks of getting their dose. Officials said the adverse events appeared to be “extremely rare.”

Like the rest of the country, Kentucky is administering the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, but “we have very little Johnson & Johnson in Kentucky compared to the Pfizer and Moderna, [which] are still entirely safe and incredibly effective,” Beshear said in a brief video update Tuesday morning.

Pause could make it difficult to get UK students fully vaccinated

One of the advantages to the Johnson & Johnson one-shot vaccine was that UK students could get their first shot up until the end of the spring semester without worrying about scheduling a second dose.

Wild Health, the health technology company which partnered with UK to run the clinic, has a surplus of vaccine supply. That made it possible to quickly switch to Pfizer doses and continue the clinic Tuesday.

But the company is worried about trying to schedule follow-up appointments for students who may not be eligible for a second dose before school ends on May 14. Those students may have left town once it’s time for their booster shot.

“For these next four days, we’ve really got to push” to get as many students scheduled as possible, said Dr. Luke Murray.

Murray, the director of COVID-19 operations at Wild Health, said those students who get scheduled in the next few days will still be eligible to get their second shot before the semester ends.

Those who want to get vaccinated through a UK clinic can sign up at vaccine.ukhc.org.

Lexington health department waits for federal review

Like Beshear, the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department on Tuesday announced it would wait for the federal review regarding reports of adverse reactions from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine before making a decision about its vaccine clinic scheduled for Friday. That review was expected to begin Wednesday. Appointments scheduled for Friday were “paused” for the time being.

“Any changes to the clinic will be reported directly to anyone with an appointment and updated on our website and social media accounts,” the health department said in a tweet Tuesday.

The local health department recently began using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after previously using Moderna.

Vaccines paused at Lexington homeless shelter

Kentucky, like many states, has used the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to immunize more vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations. State officials have relied on the single-dose vaccine to immunize people housed in Kentucky’s jails and prisons, rural Kentuckians who lack reliable transportation, as well as people experiencing homelessness.

Ginny Ramsey, the director at the Catholic Action Center in Lexington, said the center was pausing its COVID-19 vaccination scheduled for Thursday. The center provides a homeless shelter and only had 11 current residents left to vaccinate.

“We were excited to be able to offer the Johnson & Johnson (vaccine) because it provided the complete coverage in one injection instead of trying to track people down four weeks later,” Ramsey said.

She said the Catholic Action Center was waiting for further guidance from the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department before determining what would happen next, but the Thursday clinic was definitely “on pause.”

The Catholic Action Center had the Pfizer vaccine when it started doing clinics in January. It also had Moderna before eventually switching to Johnson & Johnson.

“I pray that they’re able to restart it because a single dose is so important for our population and for a lot of people,” she said.

Ramsey added she was happy that federal agencies were being transparent about the potential issues with the vaccine. She said more than 100 people had been vaccinated at the Catholic Action Center and none suffered significant long-term side effects.