Boulder County celebrated an influx of 11,000 vaccines into the county this week during its biweekly COVID Community Update on Wednesday.
Of the 11,000 vaccines administered to county residents, 2,000 were the new Janssen — sometimes referred to as Johnson & Johnson — vaccine, according to Chris Campbell, Boulder County emergency manager.
Boulder County is leading the way among metro-area municipalities in reaching the 70-and-older population, with 88% vaccinated, he said.
Nationally, more than 61 million people have received at least one vaccine dose and more than 32 million have received the full two-shot protocol. Colorado has administered more than 1.7 million doses, with 653,382 people fully immunized, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Boulder County officials are hopeful the expansion of vaccine options will make doses more readily available. Providers have the ability to roll out about 25,000 vaccines a week, Campbell said.
Concerns about which is the right vaccine weighed on the minds of attendees of Wednesday’s virtual meeting. Dr. Chris Urbina, Boulder County chief medical office, urged everyone to “take the vaccine when it is offered,” referring to any of the Pfizer, Moderna or Janssen vaccines.
The Janssen vaccine is a viral vector vaccine, as opposed to Pfizer and Moderna, which are messenger RNA, or mRNA, vaccines. A viral vector vaccine is the traditional way vaccines have been made in the past, including the flu vaccine, Urbina said.
All the vaccine options stimulate a person’s immune system to reduce the effects of the virus, he said.
“They are all effective … It doesn’t matter which you receive, they all work,” Urbina said.
Viral vector vaccines use a modified version of a different virus, the “vector,” to deliver instructions to cells, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For COVID-19 viral vector vaccines, the vector enters a cell and then uses the cell’s machinery to produce a harmless piece of the virus that causes COVID-19, according to the CDC.
Messenger RNA vaccines teach “cells how to make a protein — or even just a piece of a protein — that triggers an immune response,” according to the CDC. That immune response, which produces antibodies, is what protects against infection, the CDC states.
The side effects of the Janssen vaccine are the same as other vaccines, Urbina said. They can include fever, a sore arm, swelling at the injection site, fatigue and muscle aches. “Those side effects are very short-term,” he said.
COVID data
For information on Boulder County COVID cases, deaths, hospitalizations and trends, click here.
One of the benefits of the Janssen vaccine is it is a single dose rather than the two-shot protocol of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. It also does not have the same refrigeration requirements as the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which has the county considering its use at mobile and community clinics.
The county has used mobile clinics at 40 affordable housing sites, including working with the Longmont Housing Authority, which includes eight facilities, Campbell said. This effort has resulted in an additional 650 people receiving the vaccine close to where they live, he said.
Larger community clinics are in the works and are slated to begin in the next two weeks, Campbell said. Those include a site in Longmont, at which Salud Family Health Center will administer the vaccine. Another will take place at the South East County Hub Clinic in Lafayette in partnership with SCL Health and Clinica Family Health. The dates and times of the clinics are still being finalized but could be “as early as next week,” Campbell said.
The community clinics will receive a federal allocation of the vaccine to meet the county’s equity goals, he said.
