Bucks Co. To Resume Johnson & Johnson Vaccinations

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — Bucks County will resume giving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for COVID-19 this week, after federal officials lifted a two-week ban to study its safety.

Appointments to get the single-dose vaccine were scheduled to start again on Tuesday at the county's public vaccination site in Warwick. The county paused vaccinations there on April 13 after concerns arose about a small number of cases in which blood clots were associated with the vaccine.

But a federal advisory committee ruiled that the vaccine's benefits "far outweighed the minuscule chances" of serious problems, county health officials said in a news release.

"J&J is an important part of the vaccine response, and the benefits have been shown to greatly outweigh any potential risks," said Dr. David Damsker, director of the Bucks County Health Department. "I encourage everyone 18 and up to get vaccinated with any of the three available vaccines as soon as possible, and those who are 16 and 17 years old to get the Pfizer vaccine."

Being fully vaccinated drops the risk of being hospitalized with a severe case of the coronavirus to "extremely low levels," Damsker said, while also lowering the risk of spreading the virus.

As of late Monday, a total of 155,824 people had been fully vaccinated in Bucks County and another 92,536 had received a single dose of one of the two-shot vaccines. That amounts to nearly half — 49.5 percent — of the county's adult population.

The vaccine news comes along with a positive development on new COVID cases in Bucks County. The number of new cases in Bucks dropped by 20 percent last week.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health reported 1,579 new cases in the county, down from 1,977 the week before. The county's total number of cases since the pandemic began now sits at 57,559.

At week's end, 97 people were hospitalized with COVID, a 16-percent drop. Another 18 deaths in Bucks County were attributed to the virus last week, bringing the death toll to 1,230.

Bucks officials said the return of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will help them get more people in underserved communities vaccinated.

AMI Expeditionary Healthcare, the county's contractor for its vaccine program, will send a mobile vaccination unit to three homeless shelters over the next three days, hoping to vaccinate 170 residents and staff members.

Meanwhile, county teams will use the vaccine to inoculate hundreds of homebound people and residents of Housing Authority properties. Using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, officials said, will mean mobile providers won't have to make return trips in those cases.