CARMEL, Ind. — It’s been a long time coming.
“Absolute relief,” said Kelly Emmert from Carmel. Emmert was standing in line waiting to get vaccinated at West Park Sunday morning at a pop-up vaccine clinic.
“I’ve been waiting for a while. I’m about 15 weeks pregnant right now and it’s just a relief for what that looks like for my future child, too,” said Emmert.
Emmert is one of just over 1,000 people who pre-registered for the clinic to receive the single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
“I’m from out of town,” said 27-year-old Jarrett Ewell, who came all the way from New Jersey to get his shot.
He couldn’t find an appointment back home and now that eligibility has opened up, Ewell was eligible.
“They said they had a spot open, my aunt said 'do it while you can,'” said Ewell, whose timing may be spot on with a shortage of Johnson & Johnson vaccines expected due to reported issues in shipping and production.
Only 700,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are set to go out to the states next week.
“That did not affect today," said Christian Walker of the Hamilton County Health Department. "We had these vaccines in hand prior to us opening the website for registration.”
According to Walker, in order to plan more pop-up clinics, they’re going to need to know what kind of supply of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine they can expect in the coming weeks.
“We are going to wait, and we will always wait until we have the vaccine in hand prior to us making another pop-up clinic. Our hope is to open up more clinics in the future,” Walker explained.
People like Kelly Emmert won’t have to wait for that, though.
“I’m glad we’ve got access to the vaccine now,” said Emmert, who’s thankful and hopes even with the expected Johnson & Johnson vaccine shortage, it won’t last long.
“I’m glad that people are willing to get them and I hope that more people consider getting them,” said Emmert of the vaccine.