First doses on hold, mobile sites scrapped as Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause impacts Florida

ORLANDO, Fla. — Because the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is on hold, the Federal Emergency Management Agency site at the Valencia College West Campus has not been giving any first doses for the past three days.

Federal and local leaders have said there is enough supply of the other two vaccines to get through this pause, but there seems to be a delay in Florida.

For the past week before the pause, the massive site was giving 3,000 J&J shots or more a day.

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The site is still giving second doses of the Pfizer shot, but they haven’t yet figured how to supplement the gap left by the J&J shots for first doses.

State officials said FEMA indicated that it may be able to supplement next week’s J&J vaccines with additional first doses of Pfizer, which would cover several more days without J&J vaccines at the FEMA site.

Read: Pfizer says COVID-19 booster shots will likely be needed

After initially saying Pfizer and Moderna were solutions, the state of Florida said after reviewing current supplies they do not have enough Pfizer or Moderna vaccines to continue one-day pop-up sites indefinitely; these pop-ups sites have played a key role in providing vaccines in hard-to-reach areas.

As of now, all mobile vaccination events are canceled through Saturday.

Watch: Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine hold may be more beneficial over time, doctors say

The Florida Division of Emergency Management said if they don’t get further guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration by the end of this week, they are preparing for next week’s allocations and determining how to supplement efforts with available Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.

Cox Media Group