J&J clinics resume in Butler County

After a two week delay, vaccination clinics are back on track in Butler County.

Last Friday, the state gave public health departments the go-ahead to resume distributing the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, which had been put on pause just before the county was set to inoculate the area's manufacturing workers.

"I've been working on getting those manufacturers that we had put on hold rescheduled again," said Butler County Public Health Director Jennifer Becker. "We'll have them all finished next week."

Once the area's manufacturing workers are inoculated, the county will open up the J&J vaccine to the general public. Due to the one-shot nature of the vaccine, some have specifically asked for the J&J vaccine over the two-shot Moderna vaccine that is also available.

However, demand for either vaccine has started to plateau as most people who have wanted the vaccine have already gotten it. Because of this, Butler County Public Health will not be doing a Moderna prime clinic this week, instead only having a boost clinic on Tuesday.

"We're just not getting the calls," said Becker. "The demand just isn't there right now."

The next prime clinic for Moderna is scheduled for Friday, May 7 and Becker encourages people to call and set-up an appointment for that date. In spite of the reduced demand, vaccinations will still be limited to scheduled clinics. Because each vial contains enough vaccine for ten shots and must be used within hours of opening, walk-ins are not ideal.

"It has to be by schedule so we can use the whole vial of vaccine at once," said Becker.

As of Monday, April 26, approximately 11,100 doses of vaccine have been administered to Butler County residents, with 4,760 completing their two-dose vaccine series and an additional 266 receiving a one-dose vaccine.

A total of 1,628 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in the county, increasing the county total in the last week by just three cases.

In Butler County, 7,162 individuals have been tested at some point during the pandemic, with a total of 29,347 tests performed on Butler County residents overall. In the last 14 days, 6% of total tests have been positive for the virus.

No additional COVID-19 related deaths have been reported in the county, keeping the county total at 34.