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New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. | Pool Photos by Kevin Sanders/New Jesey Globe
New Jersey will start administering coronavirus vaccine shots to health care workers on Tuesday at University Hospital in Newark, Gov. Phil Murphy said on Sunday.
“I’ll be there Tuesday morning at University Hospital. … We will begin vaccinating our heroic health care workers,” Murphy said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” “it’s going to be a big day on Tuesday morning in Newark.”
The first shipment: Roughly 2.9 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine will be shipped to vaccination sites around the country. That’s about half of the 6.4 million doses the government has said will be available for the first wave of vaccinations. It is holding back enough to ensure that the first vaccine recipients get the second of two doses three weeks after their first.
Murphy has said New Jersey will receive about 76,000 doses in the first batch. He said on Sunday that “the majority” will go to health care workers but a “good slug” will also go to long-term care residents and staff.
“Those [groups] are the two top priorities, and it’ll take us a number of weeks, as you can imagine, to work through the entire populations in both of those groups,” Murphy said.
Rising caseload: Coronavirus cases are continuing to surge across the nation, and New Jersey has been averaging about 5,000 cases a day. Murphy reiterated on Sunday that much of the spread is taking place in private settings, and he urged residents to stay home for the holidays.
“The next number of weeks are going to be hell, I fear,” Murphy said. “So we’re begging with people to please, please, please don’t let your guard down.”
What’s next: Murphy said he expects that the state will be able to ramp up distribution as more vaccines are approved for authorization. Murphy predicted that all residents will have access to one of these vaccines by around April or May.
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