Many New Jersey residents desperate for the COVID-19 vaccine made an appointment online to be vaccinated at various Hackensack Meridian health facilities. The only problem is that some of them are not eligible for the vaccine according to the state’s plan to limit who gets the vaccine, for now, to health professionals, first responders and nursing home and resident workers.
Although it is not exactly clear what happened, it appears that the website where the first respondents were asked to schedule appointments is accessible to the public and may have been shared with people who did not qualify in categories 1A or 1B.
“We had a handful of people who came and were not eligible as frontline health professionals or first responders. We inform these people that they can apply as soon as we open the vaccine process to the general public, as determined by state and federal guidelines, ”said Hackensack Meridian Health in a statement on Monday.
“We added additional educational information, as well as improved identification requirements to ensure that only those eligible for the vaccine receive it, according to federal and New Jersey guidelines,” the statement said.
Anyone who has signed up will be contacted and advised not to attend unless they can prove that they are a health professional or first aid, according to the health system.
Stephanie Alvarez, assistant nursing manager at Hackensack Meridian Health Palisades Medical Canter in North Bergen, shows her vaccination card on Friday, December 18, 2020. (Reena Rose Sibayan | The Jersey Journal)
It is not easy to schedule vaccines for hundreds of thousands of health professionals and first responders in New Jersey. Trying to make sure that the people who show up to take the photo are really eligible can only complicate the process, officials noted.
To that end, state health commissioner Judith Persichilli said at a news conference on Monday that the state does not require people to show documentation of their eligibility.
“We are relying on the integrity of all of you to do the right thing in this regard and not to ‘skip the line’,” she said. “We know that everyone is anxious and we ask for your patience while we wait for a bigger stock of vaccines.”
It is not clear whether many facilities are following this policy. A spokeswoman for Hackensack Meridian Health said identification is needed at her facility.
Persichilli noted that documentation could slow the process and the state would like to keep vaccines “a positive experience”.
The state is doing a balancing act, trying to vaccinate as many high-risk people as quickly as possible to avoid wasting a drop of the vaccine that can spoil over time, while dealing with a limited supply of vaccine which comes weekly to the federal government.
More than 214,000 doses of the vaccine were administered in New Jersey on Monday, said Governor Phil Murphy. This includes 199,293 first dose and 14,984 second dose.
The doses distributed to people represent about 37% of the more than 572,250 doses that the state received from the US government, according to data from the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The state’s goal is to vaccinate 70% of the population in six months. The public can pre-register to receive the vaccine by qualifying on the state website.
Team editor Karin Price-Mueller contributed to this story.
Thank you for trusting us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a signature.
Rebecca Everett can be reached at [email protected]. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip on here.