At the Hudson County-run COVID-19 vaccination site at the USS Juneau Center in Kearny, residents over 75 years old will receive priority for appointments this week.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
Beginning this week, the vaccine appointment portal will only allow for those who are 75 years and older to schedule a time to be vaccinated.
In the event that appointment slots go unfilled, the portal will be reopened for all other eligible Hudson County residents. 327 residents over 75 have already registered to be vaccinated on Monday, 25 of whom are over 90 years old, officials said.
“Since beginning our vaccination efforts two months ago, we have remained committed to providing eligible residents in all corners of Hudson County with the opportunity to be vaccinated, especially those most at risk,” Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise said in a statement.
“In the coming days, we will be furthering our efforts to assist our most vulnerable residents and ensure that this life saving vaccine is put into the arms of those who are most in need.”
Those with second dose appointments will still be vaccinated as scheduled.
Additionally, county officials will be proactively contacting residents who are 75 or older and who have already registered on its system to fill vaccination slots for the week.
All residents are encouraged to preregister for the COVID-19 vaccine by visiting hudsoncovidvax.org.
To date, the county-run site has administered 19,648 vaccinations, 12,997 first doses and 6,671 second doses. This week, the center will administer 1,900 first doses and 1,790 second doses, the total allocation they received from the state.
With data showing Hudson County ranked last out of New Jersey’s 21 counties in terms of vaccinations administered as a percentage of the eligible population (and in the middle of the pack in terms of the number of overall inoculations to date), some electeds have begun voicing concerns about the roughly 5,500 weekly vaccine allocations from the state.
Maybe they’re waiting until they can do dual purpose efforts by attaching filled-out mail-in ballots.
That’s the highest Democrat priority, other than dissolving election integrity standards nationally.