First doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine to arrive in Riverside County

The third vaccine in the quest to end COVID-19 is making its way to Riverside County.

"Our initial allocation would be about 16,400," said Riverside County Department of Public Health spokesperson, Jose Arballo.

The shipment is slated to arrive early next week, and shots could start to be injected within 1-2 days after that, according to Arballo.

"The division would probably be ⅓ for the clinics, ⅓ for the mobile teams and then ⅓ for community providers."

By next week the Indio Fairgrounds will transition from a county-ran site to a Curative site. Despite the change, Arballo said Curative is slated to receive some of its shipment of the J and J shot.

The vaccine has become the latest to enter the pool of COVID-fighting vaccines. This past week President Biden announced that the country was on track to "have enough vaccine supply for every adult in America by the end of May."

Last Saturday the Food and Drug Administration issued Emergency Use Authorization for the single shot. The race is on to pump out as many vaccines as possible.

"I don’t really have a preference. I’ve researched some of them and they’re pretty comparable to each other. As long as I could get one, I’d be happy," said Palm Desert resident, Daniel Marquez.

"I think the Johnson and Johnson is certainly a valid option. Having only one vaccine to get is phenomenal, however, based on the amount of travel I do in a normal life, for business I really want something as efficient as possible and that tells me Moderna and Pfizer would probably be my best options," said Indio resident, Patti Zullo.

With more vaccines comes more options. County officials are advising people to take what they can get.

"We encourage people not to what we were calling vaccine shopping. We want them to get the vaccine that’s available for them," said Arballo.