New Jersey Nursing Homes Won’t Receive COVID Vaccine This Week Due to Missed Deadline

Brittany Bernstein

Nursing home residents in New Jersey will not receive the coronavirus vaccine on Monday after state officials missed the federal deadline by one day.

“In order to start on the 21st there was a deadline of the 7th … we missed that date by a day,” Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said at a press conference Friday.

“We asked to start on the 21st and they said, ‘No, you’ll start on the 28th.’ It was as simple as that,” Persichilli said.

The health commissioner said the “sheer volume of information that had to be inputted” for the more than 600 long-term care facilities, skilled nursing homes and assisted living facilities caused the state to miss the deadline.

Governor Phil Murphy said the vaccine will be administered by CVS and Walgreens through a federal partnership, according to NJ.com.

“We will start at our veterans’ homes and skilled nursing facilities, and move to assisted living residences, among other long-term congregate settings,” Murphy said.

The news comes after the state announced last week it will be receiving 20 percent fewer doses of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines through year’s end. Though it had been promised 492,075 doses of the vaccines this month, it will get only 392,800, according to Persichilli.

COVID-19 has ravaged nursing homes in New Jersey and the greater tri-state area. More than 11,000 nursing home residents in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut have died from the coronavirus, according to data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

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