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Vaccine Pop-Up Returns To Lutheran Social Services After FDA Pause

A person holds a strip of stickers that say "I Got Mine"
Courtesy Lutheran Social Services

The Pfizer coronavirus vaccine will be available free of charge Tuesday at Lutheran Social Services in Jacksonville. 

The pop-up vaccination event was originally scheduled for April 13 and was to be the one-shot Johnson and Johnson vaccine. But LSS cancelled the event when the FDA paused the use of that vaccine after six women reported side effects. 

During the pause, medical and scientific teams at the FDA and the CDC looked at vaccine data to assess the risk of blood clots like those reported by the six women. 

“The teams at FDA and CDC also conducted extensive outreach to providers and clinicians to ensure they were made aware of the potential for these adverse events and could properly manage and recognize these events due to the unique treatment required for these blood clots and low platelets, also known as thrombosis-thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS),” the two agencies said in a news release.

The agencies said the vaccine’s benefits outweigh the risks, and the chance of blood clots occurring is very low. 

LSS says FEMA allocated them doses of the Pfizer vaccine this time.

“We consider it a privilege to welcome our neighbors and the whole community to LSS for a vaccine,” said LSS president and CEO Bill Brim.

LSS is located at 4615 Philips Highway. Vaccinations will be available from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. All who need it are encouraged to stop by the LSS food pantry, which is open from 10 a.m. to noon, while they’re there. 

Contact Sydney Boles at sboles@wjct.org, or on Twitter at@sydneyboles.

Sydney manages community engagement programs like WJCT News' Coronavirus Texting Service. Originally from the mountains of upstate New York, she relocated to Jacksonville from Kentucky, where she reported on Appalachia's coal industry.