Health workers and first responders began receiving the Moderna vaccine Saturday morning at Essex Community College, one of five locations in the county where the vaccine is made available.
“Receiving the vaccine is the light at the end of the tunnel and getting vaccinated will greatly help to stop the spread of the deadly Coronavirus. We have been looking forward to this day and have worked with our mayors, local health officials, public safety officers and emergency management personnel to ensure that our sites would be ready and operational once the vaccines are received, ”said Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr., Essex County director. “I encourage everyone to get the vaccine.”
The first person to receive the vaccine on Saturday morning was a doctor at Essex County Hospital.
“It was important to me as a healthcare provider, first and foremost the risk I could be exposed to, and at the same time exposing the people around me, as the district administration said, we need to have a certain percentage of the population vaccinated and about 75 up to 80% would be a very reasonable number, as we get what is known as herd immunity, ”said Dr. Naipaul Rambaran. “Herd immunity will not begin until those on the front lines set an example themselves by taking the vaccine.”
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Bonnie Rogers, a school nurse, and Dr. Lionel Anicette, a medical director at the Essex County Correctional Facility, also received the vaccine on Saturday.
“I am here for those people who are vulnerable … this pandemic has exposed many vulnerabilities,” Anicette said.
Vaccinations with the Moderna injection first started Thursday at University Hospital in Newark. One of the first to receive the vaccine was the hospital’s president, who says he is feeling well so far.
“We’ve already done over 1,000, we’re nearing our initial Pfizer supply allocation, which we got, which comes down to about 3,000 doses, and we’re going like clockwork because we want to make sure we’re using it right the supplies and that we’re getting more and more cargoes and we’re vaccinating more people, “said Dr. Shereef Elnahal.
Essex County has set up five vaccination centers. The locations and municipalities served at each site are as follows:
-Essex County College, 303 University Avenue, Newark (gym entrance on West Market Street): Newark, East Orange and Irvington.
-Essex County Donald M. Payne, Sr. School of Technology, 498-544 West Market Street, Newark: Newark, East Orange and Irvington. (This site will open in January 2021.)
– Former Kmart Building, 235 Prospect Avenue, West Orange: West Orange, Cedar Grove, Essex Fells, Montclair, Newark, Nutley and Verona.
-Livingston Mall, Former Sears Building, 112 Eisenhower Parkway, Livingston (entrance is rear): Livingston, Belleville, Maplewood, Millburn, Newark, Orange and South Orange.
-Essex County West Caldwell School of Technology, 620 Passaic Avenue, West Caldwell: West Caldwell, Bloomfield, Caldwell, Fairfield, Glen Ridge, Newark, North Caldwell and Roseland.
New Jersey has seen a positivity rate of a whopping 13% for the past week.
By the end of next month, New Jersey will have received more than 400,000 doses of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines combined. Vaccinations begin next week in more than 90 nursing homes across the state.
The state started vaccinating about a week later than New York and Connecticut because a federal deadline had been missed by one day.
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