New Jersey has administered more than half-million doses of the coronavirus vaccine as health officials continue to march on their ambitious goal to have some 5 million residents vaccinated by May, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Friday.
The current total of doses administered is 500,222, Murphy said at his regular COVID-19 briefing. It includes 65,583 doses given to people living and working at long-term care facilities.
“As a reminder, last Wednesday — just nine days ago — we were just over 250,000,” Murphy said, “So you can see how we are pushing forward as best we can with the limited resources we have been provided.”
New Jersey has faced criticism for having a slower rollout than dozens of other states as it continues to deal with a second wave of the pandemic, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
New Jersey has received 923,300 doses so far from the feds, according to a running tally from the CDC.
New Jersey health officials on Friday reported another 3,694 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 118 additional deaths as the state confirmed the first two cases of the highly-contagious COVID-19 variant first identified in the U.K.
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But Murphy noted a large number of the vaccines have been set aside for residents and staffers at nursing homes. The state hasn’t been administering those doses. Instead, they’ve been given out by CVS and Walgreens through a federal program.
Murphy has blamed CVS and Walgreens for the state’s slow rollout.
Another roughly 100,000 weekly doses the state receives go directly to New Jersey’s six “mega-sites” and the 130 sites currently administering shots.
“When it comes to these vaccines — the ones we control — we have been able to get between 50% to 70%, depending on the day of these into the arms of our residents,” Murphy said. “When it comes to the vaccines distributed to our pharmacy partners, only little more than 10% of those have been distributed.”
Health officials have said they want to vaccinate 70% of the state’s eligible adult population within six months since the first shot was given.
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Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com.