LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Governor Asa Hutchinson said Tuesday that as Arkansas pauses on using Johnson & Johnson, it is still vital for state residents to get vaccinated.
“We are confident in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but we are giving pause for concerns of the adverse reactions that have been reported,” Hutchinson said.
Health secretary Dr. José R. Romero said that of the six blood clotting reactions, all were women between 18 and 38 years old and happened within a two-week period of being administered the vaccine.
Hutchinson pointed out that there has been no adverse reaction reported within Arkansas, and that for those who have received the Johnson and Johnson vaccine it has remained effective.
There are currently 63,000 doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine the state has received that will not be used. Arkansas has received 245,000 Pfizer doses and 178,000 Moderna doses, which the governor said will give every remaining adult Arkansan the opportunity to get receive the vaccine.
New data from the Arkansas Department of Health shows that there were 224 new cases of COVID-19 reported in the last 24 hours, moving the total number of cases during the pandemic to 332,446. The active case count rose by 23 to 1,663.
There were an additional eight deaths reported, bringing the total number of Arkansans who have died from COVID-19 to 5,673.
An additional seven patients were removed from the hospitalization list, moving that to 148 cases in the state. Of those, 19 patients require ventilation, a rise of two from the prior day.
Currently, there are 356,787 Arkansans who have been partially vaccinated, while 560,168 have been fully vaccinated.
