September 20, 2024
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Kendall County Health Department planning to resume use of Johnson & Johnson vaccine

No plans yet to reschedule Hide-A-Way Lakes campground mobile clinic

By Lucas Robinson
FILE - In this March 3, 2021, file photo, U.S. Army medic Kristen Rogers, of Waxhaw, N.C., holds a vial of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine in North Miami, Fla. With the U.S. pause of the vaccine, authorities are weighing whether to resume the shots the way European regulators decided to -- with warnings of a “very rare” risk. New guidance is expected late Friday, April 23, after a government advisory panel deliberates a link between the shot and a handful of vaccine recipients who developed highly unusual blood clots. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier, File)

FILE - In this March 3, 2021, file photo, U.S. Army medic Kristen Rogers, of Waxhaw, N.C., holds a vial of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine in North Miami, Fla. With the U.S. pause of the vaccine, authorities are weighing whether to resume the shots the way European regulators decided to -- with warnings of a “very rare” risk. New guidance is expected late Friday, April 23, after a government advisory panel deliberates a link between the shot and a handful of vaccine recipients who developed highly unusual blood clots. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier, File) (Marta Lavandier/AP)

Shots of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine will resume in Kendall County after a weekslong pause, the county’s top health official has said.

RaeAnn VanGundy, executive director of the Kendall County Health Department, said that federal health authorities have faith in the vaccine and that existing protocols for side effects reporting will remain in place.

“We will plan on administering our J&J doses within the next 10 days,” VanGundy wrote in an email. “The FDA and CDC have confidence that this vaccine is safe and effective in preventing COVID-19.”

The health department had suspended use of the vaccine Tuesday, April 13, out of an “abundance of caution” after federal authorities paused use of the shot after blood clotting reports.

In response to the pause, local health officials canceled a planned Johnson & Johnson mobile clinic at the Hide-A-Way Lakes campground off Van Emmon Road in unincorporated Oswego Township. VanGundy said her department has no current plans to reschedule the clinic.