The Medical Center at Bowling Green announced Tuesday that its vaccine clinic is now accepting limited walk-in appointments for anyone at least 16 years of age.

Other local entities, meanwhile, are following a national recommendation and pausing vaccinations with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Med Center Health Vice President of Corporate Support Services Dr. Melinda Joyce said specific times and open slots will vary daily, and that walk-in appointments would work best during the morning hours.

“If an individual comes in later on in the day, then we may not be able to get them in that day,” Joyce said. “However, anyone can walk in and at the very least get an appointment scheduled.”

“This is just tremendous for our region,” Joyce added. “We will make every effort to take care of them and get them their vaccine. It’s a great addition to have walk-ins.”

The clinic is open for walk-ins and for scheduled appointments Sunday through Wednesday from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. each day. People under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Joyce said this opportunity was possible due to the clinic seeing a recent decrease in demand from the public for the COVID-19 vaccine. She said this was due in part to the vaccine being readily available in several locations throughout southcentral Kentucky.

“We are scheduling as many as possible, and we are currently administering doses to 900 people per day,” Joyce said. “We still need to meet the governor’s requirement of administering at least 90% of our weekly supply of Pfizer vaccine we receive. We just want to do whatever we can to make it easy as possible for anyone to get a vaccine.”

As of Tuesday morning, Med Center Health had administered 70,354 doses across all of its locations and 28,875 individuals are now fully vaccinated.

Individuals between 16 and 59 years of age can still text COVID to 270-796-4400 to make an appointment while individuals 60 years or older can text keyword SENIOR to 270-796-3200.

Joyce said that news of the CDC and the FDA on Tuesday recommending a “pause” in using the single-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine to investigate reports of rare but potentially dangerous blood clots will not have any impact on the clinic.

However, the news will affect several local pharmacies and the Barren River District Health Department, which were only administering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

A statement from the health department said it would administer the two-shot Moderna vaccine to patients with an appointment.

People who prefer to wait for the Johnson & Johnson shot should cancel their appointment, the statement said. The health department will notify the public when it can again administer the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Both Hines Pharmacy and Northgate Pharmacy are temporarily pausing vaccination appointments until the CDC and FDA’s recommendation is lifted.

According to Hines Pharmacy’s Beth Murley and Northgate Pharmacy’s Catherine Staples, both stores were only administering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and will wait until the guidance is lifted to restart their vaccination efforts.