By Walter Elliott
NEWARK – The distribution of the COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus vaccines, some eight days after the first inoculations here, is spreading out to other hospitals, nursing homes and designated sites while you tread this.
“Local Talk” received some evidence of the rollout’s direction when a staff member got a message Dec. 21 from his mother’s nursing home in East Orange.
The nursing home staff asked permission to inoculate “Mom” on or by the end of this year. The home’s representative had set a Dec. 25 deadline to hear from the families or legal guardians of their residents so they could start detailed planning.
The state and federal governments’ reaching out to the nursing homes with the first vaccine batches is in keeping with a strategy that is comparable to an army’s invasion of an enemy stronghold in a World War Two movie.
After establishing vaccination “beachheads” here at University Hospital and five other key regional medical centers across the state, the New Jersey Department of Health directed vaccines to another 47 hospitals on Dec.19.
Two of Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health’s hospitals – Newark Beth Israel and Belleville’s Clara Maass – began inoculating their frontline workers Dec. 21.
Newark Beth Israel Medical Center opened its employee vaccination center 6 a.m. that Monday – with RN Vatesse Pleasant first in line.
Clara Maass meanwhile greeted their first inoculant, ICU Nurse Tanya Howard, two hours later.
Glen Ridge-Montclair’s Mountainside Hospital gave the first of its 975 doses to Respiratory Therapist Steven Sokolowski by 6 a.m. Dec. 17.
The state’s remaining 18 hospitals are to get their first vaccines on or by Dec. 31. They may be vaccines from Pfizer and/or BioNTech, who received first FDA emergency authorizations Dec. 11, or ModernaTX, who received similar permission Dec. 17.
The foregoing are people who are in the state department’s Category 1A, “paid or unpaid people serving in health care settings who have the direct or indirect exposure to patients or infectious materials and long-term residents and staff.”
Those who are considered 1B – essential workers – are getting scheduled for Essex County’s five geocentric vaccination centers. State Health Commissioner Judy Persichchilli announced on another six statewide vaccination “mega-sites” Jan. 18 with another 215 satellite sites being set up.
Those six mega-sires are:
- The Meadowlands Sports Complex, E. Rutherford.
- New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center, Edison.
- Moorestown Mall, Burlington County.
- Rowan College of South Jersey at Sewell, Gloucester County.
- The Atlantic City Convention Center.
“Local Talk” will pass along what satellite vaccination centers are established here when announced.
Pfizer, BioNTech and ModernaTX are to ship a second wave of their vaccines open on or by Dec. 28. They may be joined by AstraZeneca, Inovio, CanSino, Gamaleya Research Institute and/or Novax pending FDA approval.
The more pharmaceutical companies’ vaccines which join the vaccination pipeline means that there will be a more consistent supply chain to the pandemic’s front lines.
“We expect vaccine demand will outpace supply,” said Persichilli during her part of Gov. Phil Murphy’s Friday Coronavirus Briefing. “So we’ll need to initiate vaccine sites in phases to assure equitable distribution.”
What the “Local Talk” staffer received is the state expanding vaccinations to Category 1C – adults 65 and older and/or adults with “underlying medical conditions.” Those who fall in 1C include patients and residents among the state’s 600 long-term health care facilities – including 33 in “Local Talk Land.”
Long term care facilities’ residents and staff are to receive their shots delivered by UPS, Federal Express and other private parcel carriers That delivery is part of the U.S. “Operation Warp Speed” partnership that also includes CVS and Walgreens pharmacies.
Those who do not fall into the state’s three categories – “The rest of us” – will be receiving inoculations in April or May.
The NJDOH’s objective is to have 70 percent of Garden Staters – 4.7 million people – vaccinated by or into May.
