Roosevelt pop-up site scrambles for alternate plan due to Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause

A pop-up vaccine center set to open in Roosevelt Wednesday was supposed to administer the Johnson & Johnson shots and is now scrambling to change its plans.

News 12 Staff

Apr 14, 2021, 2:20 AM

Updated 1,200 days ago

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A pop-up vaccine center set to open in Roosevelt Wednesday was supposed to administer the Johnson & Johnson shots and is now scrambling to change its plans.
Just hours after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration announced it had to pause the vaccine due to six severe, but rare, blood clotting issues, the medical provider at the pop-up site had to pivot the plan.
The site will now be offering the Pfizer vaccine so those who were scheduled will now have to come back for a second shot.
This all comes as vaccine hesitancy grows. Some Long Islanders say they are worried.
Rep. Andrew Garbarino says he spoke with someone who took their mother to get the Pfizer shot and the news just made her nervous. Garbarino hopes that the Johnson & Johnson shot can resume safely soon.
VACCINE INFORMATION: What you need to know
Garbarino stands behind the safety of Moderna and Pfizer and says if people are willing, they should roll up their sleeves.
"I don't think it will lead to more hesitancy because I think the people that want it are going to go out and get it and the people that don't want it right away, that want to see what happens, they were going to end up waiting either way."
Reverend D. Sedgewick Easley, the head of Union Baptist Church in Hempstead and a member of the Biden administration's vaccine Equity Task Force, says while we all wait for more information about why the Johnson & Johnson shot was paused everyone who is eligible and willing should keep getting vaccinated.
Garbarino says his office reached out directly to people who were scheduled to get the Johnson & Johnson shot from a mobile unit in Suffolk this weekend. Those people will now get the Moderna shot.


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