Governor Phil Murphy will visit another of six state coronavirus mega vaccine sites on Friday morning and then hold another press conference this afternoon to provide additional updates on the state’s efforts to control the virus.
Murphy will be at the New Jersey Convention and Exhibition Center in Edison at 10 am when another mega-site is launched. He will be joined by state health commissioner Judy Persichilli, US Representative Frank Pallone, D-6th Dist., Assembly President Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, and Middlesex County Commissioners Council Director Ronald Rios, and the superintendent of the state police, Colonel Pat Callahan.
Murphy’s tour of the site will be broadcast live on the governor’s YouTube.com channel.
At 1 pm, Murphy, Persichilli, Callahan and Dr. Edward Lifshitz, the medical director of the state’s communicable disease service, will be at the Trenton War Memorial for their regular press conference on Friday. It can also be watched on Murphy’s YouTube.com channel.
Mega-vaccination sites in Rockaway Townsquare and Rowan College of South Jersey in Sewell are already up and running. The Moorestown Mall mega-site also opened on Friday. The other planned mega-sites are in Meadowlands in East Rutherford and at the Atlantic City Convention Center.
In all, there were 128 vaccination posts in the state as of Thursday, with plans for more than 250.
At least 300,213 in New Jersey were vaccinated by 4:30 pm Thursday, according to the state’s COVID-19 panel. Of these, 264,556 are the first of the two required doses.
The number of patients at the state’s 71 hospitals with coronavirus or a case under investigation dropped to 3,543 from 3,639 in the previous 24-hour period. Hospitalizations have fallen by more than 5% in the last 10 days and are at their lowest since January 2.
Murphy reported another 5,967 COVID-19 cases and 94 additional deaths on Thursday.
Authorities said about 14.2% of the 20,717 tests administered in New Jersey on Sunday were positive, the most recent day for which the results are available.
Jeff Goldman can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JGoldmanNJ. Meet NJ.com on Facebook.
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