If you are one of the 4.7 million New Jersey residents who will become eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, it will not be as simple as calling your primary care physician, officials warn.
Family and primary care physicians struggled to get vaccine doses, leaving hospitals still the biggest distributors, said Dr. Sean Cook, family doctor and board member of the New Jersey Family Physicians Association, NJ Advance Media.
Cook, who works at Green Brook Family Medicine in Green Brook, said that doctors’ offices that want to give the injection are facing obstacles to getting the right vaccine refrigerators and the vaccine itself.
“We ordered another vaccine cooler, which (the supplier) can’t even tell us when we’re getting it because they can’t prepare it fast enough,” said Cook.
The Pfizer vaccine requires deep-frozen storage, which is difficult for many doctors’ offices, while the Modern vaccine can rely on more traditional refrigerators. Both vaccines require two injections several weeks apart.
“Some larger groups of doctors were able to meet the requirements, including vaccine storage needs (cold chain),” said Nancy Kearney, communications director for the state Department of Health, by email.
Calling family doctors as vaccine distributors can help speed up the process, Cook said. New Jersey expects to vaccinate 70%, or 4.7 million people, by spring. So far, 264,000 doses have been administered.
“We are familiar with the regulations for purchasing, transportation, storage, administration, reporting – this daily practice for family doctors, honestly, there is nothing new about it,” said Cook.
And establishing relationships with patients can help alleviate any concerns that people may have about the vaccine, which was met with skepticism by some over its unprecedented timeframe for implementation, he said.
Cook said his practice has partnered with several county health departments and corporate clients to conduct annual flu vaccination clinics, so they are experienced in large-scale vaccination efforts.
But severely limited supplies have made COVID-19 vaccine partnerships impossible until now, he said.
“At this point, even the people we have a relationship with don’t have vaccines yet,” said Cook.
There are currently more than 100 locations offering the vaccine in New Jersey, including county health departments, supermarket pharmacies and state-run mega sites.
“As more vaccine becomes available, we certainly want to put it in more primary care offices,” said Kearney.
In addition to health professionals and first responders, smokers, people over 65 and 1 million people with chronic diseases will be eligible for the vaccine starting on Thursday.
“I don’t think the health departments and hospitals on their own will be able to get enough vaccines,” said Cook.
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