{"id":1989,"date":"2020-12-24T20:07:14","date_gmt":"2020-12-24T20:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localtalkweekly.com\/?p=1989"},"modified":"2020-12-24T20:07:25","modified_gmt":"2020-12-24T20:07:25","slug":"covid-19-vaccination-rollout-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/localtalkweekly.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/24\/covid-19-vaccination-rollout-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 VACCINATION ROLLOUT CONTINUES"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Walter Elliott<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWARK<\/strong> – 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two of Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health’s hospitals – Newark Beth Israel and Belleville’s Clara Maass – began inoculating their frontline workers Dec. 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newark Beth Israel Medical Center opened its employee vaccination center 6 a.m. that Monday – with RN Vatesse Pleasant first in line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clara Maass meanwhile greeted their first inoculant, ICU Nurse Tanya Howard, two hours later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glen Ridge-Montclair’s Mountainside Hospital gave the first of its 975 doses to Respiratory Therapist Steven Sokolowski by 6 a.m. Dec. 17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those six mega-sires are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n