Post 178 and county coordinated for clinic, but J&J vaccines foiled plans

The Millerton American Legion Post 178 has a reputation for doing good works, and even though its Community Pop-up Vaccination Clinic with the Dutchess County Department of Behavioral & Community Health (DBCH) on Friday, April 16, planned from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Legion Hall, had to be canceled, it doesn’t minimize the good intentions of either entity. 

The county had expected to distribute roughly 100 of the Johnson & Johnson vaccines. And therein lies the problem. 

On Tuesday, April 13, Post 178 Historian Sean Klay informed this newspaper that “the FDA/CDC is recommending a pause on the J&J vaccine,” later confirming that “[the county] will NOT be administering the J&J vaccine this Friday and [is] currently reevaluating their options at this time.”

The reason? Because, according to a report from The New York Times, of the roughly 7 million Americans who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, “six women developed rare blood clots… All six recipients were women between the ages of 18 and 48. One woman died and a second woman in Nebraska has been hospitalized in critical condition.” The U.S. has since decided to put a pause on the vaccine, hence the cancelation of Friday’s pop-up clinic at the Legion Post 178.

Dutchess County, under the sound leadership of County Executive Marc Molinaro, has been aggressively setting up pop-up clinics for a number of months, in addition to the two Points of Dispensing (PODs) sites it has permanently established at the former JCPenney store at the Poughkeepsie Galleria on Route 9 in Wappingers Falls and at the CVS Plaza on Route 22 in Dover Plains. 

As of Wednesday, April 7, according to the New York State vaccine tracker, 106,041 Dutchess County residents (36.1% of the population) have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine and 61,425 Dutchess County residents (20.9% of the population) have completed the vaccine series.

That’s excellent news, especially because Molinaro has been battling fiercely to get his hands on as many vaccine doses as possible — not an easy task when supply from the federal government is limited and New York State is clamoring for vaccines alongside the rest of the country and the world. Hiccups like the current one with the J&J vaccine only make the vaccines scarcer.

Almost a year after the health crisis hit our shores, Governor Andrew Cuomo appeared pleased when he told those New Yorkers who met the eligibility requirements on Jan. 11 that the vaccine would be available to them — back when only those over the age of 65, first responders, law enforcement, teachers, public transit and public safety workers did so. Today, all New Yorkers age 16 and older who live, work or study in the state are eligible for the vaccine. (President Biden announced that as of Monday, April 19, all adult Americans will be eligible for the vaccine.)

When Cuomo spoke in January, he said New York had just 1 million doses for more than 4 million eligible recipients at the time, as the state was to receive only 300,000 doses a week from the federal government going forward — at that rate, he complained it would take 14 weeks just to receive enough doses for those who were eligible for vaccinations. He begged for patience from New Yorkers anxious to get inoculated.

Just days earlier, on Jan. 9, Molinaro had announced that the DBCH had established its PODs to administer the vaccines to eligible residents, and an inaugural six-hour vaccine clinic was held on Jan. 16 at the Dover Middle/High School POD (the initial location in northeastern Dutchess County before being moved to the CVS Plaza), and then again on Jan. 23 and Feb. 3, and many times since at the CVS Plaza.

At each Dover POD, between 600 and 700 of either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine were typically injected into the arms of hopeful patients, all of whom expressed their gratitude to the county and the state for the free vaccines. 

So many entities — the state, the county, town governments, village governments, schools, fire departments, rescue squads, churches, doctors’ offices, pharmacists, and, of course, community organizations like the North East Community Center (NECC) in Millerton and civic groups like the Millerton American Legion Post 178 — have all offered to lend a hand. For that this newspaper, and we’re certain so many others, are deeply grateful.