MOUNT VERNON – Denise Conway knew something was amiss hours before the CDC and FDA made their joint announcement Tuesday morning.
Conway’s Pharmacy, which Denise co-owns alongside her husband, Kevin, has received and distributed roughly 500 doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine over the last month. The pharmacy (which has offices in Mount Vernon and Danville) is a part of the federal government’s Johnson & Johnson distribution program, aimed at serving transient and hard-to-reach populations.
Conway would typically receive an email from federal officials on Monday night about the shipment coming in that week. This Monday, however, her inbox was empty.
“I knew something was up,” Conway said Tuesday.
The FDA and CDC recommended a pause in the distribution of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine hours later, following reports of severe blood clots in six out of the vaccine’s 6.8 million U.S. recipients. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine followed suit, recommending all local distributors pause operations while federal experts review data and determine the best path forward.
“The CDC and FDA say the pause in administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be short,” DeWine said in a press briefing Tuesday. “They described it on the White House call this morning as days to weeks, rather than weeks to months.”
But the temporary pause will still impact the local vaccination effort, according to those on the front lines. Several local distributors are now left in limbo, having planned to receive and/or administer the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the coming weeks.
“We cannot dispense any doses,” Conway said. “There’s no manufacturing, no distribution, no administration.”
Knox Public Health is currently in possession of more than 1,000 Johnson & Johnson doses, according to KPH spokeswoman Pam Palm. These were left over from last week’s vaccination clinics at Mount Vernon Nazarene University and Kenyon College, where 280 students and faculty members were inoculated.
The health department will now need to wait before distributing those doses to the public.
“We have not made plans for distribution of the left-over vaccine and are awaiting direction from the state since the vaccine was designated for a specific audience,” Palm said.
Conway had worked with the Knox County Chamber of Commerce in recent weeks to schedule vaccination clinics at local businesses. She had three clinics planned for next week, and she anticipated distributing the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at each one.
Now, those plans will have to change. Conway’s Pharmacy will still be able to hold the clinics, she said, but it will have to distribute the two-dose Moderna vaccine instead.
“We’re sitting on hundreds of Johnson & Johnson vaccines at both Mount Vernon and Danville. It was quite alarming to see that release this morning …” Conway said. “This is a huge game-changer. It’s paused a lot of plans, with us not knowing what’s going to happen (until) we get more studies from the FDA and CDC.”
Foster’s Pharmacy in downtown Mount Vernon has only received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine so far. The store has distributed 300 doses since the beginning of March, and had planned to administer more in the coming weeks.
But now those plans are put on hold.
“We have several hundred people on our wait list, waiting to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine,” said John Hatfield, who co-owns the pharmacy alongside his wife, Heidi. “(This) just slows down the customers and public waiting to get the vaccine.”
More than 1,500 Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses have been administered in Knox County to-date, according to local distributors.
Knox Public Health has distributed 580 doses (including the college clinics last week), followed by Conway’s Pharmacy (500 doses), Knox Community Hospital (300 doses) and Foster’s Pharmacy (300 doses).
The Mount Vernon Kroger Pharmacy and Mount Vernon Rite Aid Pharmacy did not respond to requests for dosage totals Tuesday, and a representative from the Fredericktown Rite Aid Pharmacy said their store has only received Moderna so far.
Representatives from KPH, KCH, Conway’s and Foster’s said they have had no problems administering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to-date. None of the distributors reported severe adverse side effects among patients.
“We’ve had no issues actually with all of our (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine clinics. There have been no issues immediately after injection and no issues with people calling back saying, ‘I’m experiencing this,'” Conway said.
“We haven’t had to report anything on (the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System), which is where you’d report an issue to the CDC. We haven’t had to do that with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, both in the short- and long-term.”
Knox County Health Commissioner Julie Miller penned a letter to both MVNU and Kenyon officials Tuesday, explaining the federal and state guidance regarding the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and providing specific instructions on how to proceed.
“According to a statement from the FDA and CDC, anyone who has received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and then develops a severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain, or shortness of breath within three weeks after vaccination should contact their doctor,” Miller wrote.
She added that KPH has administered more than 14,000 vaccine doses over the last four months, and it has received no reports of severe adverse side effects among patients.
While the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has played a relatively minor role in Knox County’s overall vaccination effort (an estimated 95 percent of the county’s doses have come from manufacturers Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna), local distributors say it’s in high demand.
Knox Public Health ran out of doses less than five minutes into its only Johnson & Johnson walk-in clinic, held March 5 at Energy Fieldhouse. Conway and Hatfield said appointments for the vaccine have filled quickly at their pharmacies.
Local health officials believe this is likely due to the fact that Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine requires only one dose, while Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna require two.
“Johnson & Johnson has been the most popular one,” said Conway, whose pharmacy has also distributed approximately 500 doses of Moderna. “When people call, they’re always asking, ‘When are you going to have it?’ People love the idea of being one-and-done.”
Roughly 28 percent of Knox County has received the COVID-19 vaccine to-date, according to the Ohio Department of Health. One-fifth of the county is fully vaccinated.
Knox County’s distributors will continue to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines amid the Johnson & Johnson pause. Anyone age 16 or older is eligible to receive the vaccine in Ohio. Click here for more information on how to get vaccinated in Knox County.
