Mass COVID-19 vaccination clinics are again underway at Iowa’s three public universities after being disrupted last week when health officials paused the use of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Erin Baldwin, associate vice president for Student Health and Wellness at Iowa State University, says they’re now getting more doses of the Pfizer vaccine and the university will administer around 3,000 doses this week.
“We really are encouraging all of our students, faculty and staff to get vaccinated as soon as they possibly can,” Baldwin says, “as that helps us mitigate the severity and the spread of COVID-19.”
Even with the J-and-J doses being taken off the shelves temporarily, Baldwin says ISU was still able to administer more than a thousand Pfizer doses last week. “Our goal overall is to administer several thousand doses a week,” she says, “and that will, of course, depend on availability, but we’ve been able to get started over the last several weeks.”
Officials with the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa say they’ve also switched to using the Pfizer vaccine, for now.
(By Natalie Krebs, Iowa Public Radio)