The decision to pause using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine could be a major setback in the vaccination effort, including with SUNY's plans to vaccinate students on campuses before they leave for the semester.

SUNY officials are working with the state Health Department to secure alternative COVID-19 vaccines for its nearly 400,000 students.

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Officials said last week that they would start offering the one-shot vaccine to all SUNY students statewide. The plan was to get as many students fully vaccinated before leaving campus this spring to speed up the return to all in-person learning next semester.

More than 18,000 Johnson & Johnson shots were sent out to half of SUNY's 64 campuses and Purchase College officials had requested nearly 1,000 J&J shots for their students.

But school officials at Purchase College tell News 12 they hadn't started administering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to students just yet. But they were about to start within the next week, so now they've had to quickly come up with an alternate plan for its students.

Starting Wednesday, Purchase College will bus any student who had an appointment to Westchester Medical Center to get a Moderna shot instead. "We'll take a pause on Johnson & Johnson, we'll transfer to the other vaccines and then we'll go from there. But the whole mission for us for the next couple of weeks is getting those shots in arms so we can turn the page," says Chancellor Jim Malatras.

SUNY officials are asking all students with appointments for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to contact their campus or vaccination site so they can help make alternative plans. "They're coming up with another solution to a problem, so it's nice to see that they're trying to get us back to a sense of normalcy," says Purchase College sophomore Alexa Caleo.