New Jersey administered its first COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday morning, to University Hospital emergency room nurse Martiza Beniquez.
“I couldn’t wait for this moment, Beniquez said moments after receiving the shot, and celebrating her 56th birthday today.
“I barely felt the needle, I had to check to see if it went in. I didn’t feel it, there’s no pain,” she said during a press conference afterward in the hospital courtyard. Though she acknowledged a wide degree of anxiety from Black and Brown communities.
“There are people that are alive today that can remember Tuskegee.” And she admitted her daughter cried once she learned Beniquez would be receiving the vaccine.
“I wouldn’t take it if it wasn’t safe, I have a family too… the research shows that it’s 95% effective.”
Governor Murphy visits University Hospital President with Department of Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli as the first COVID-19 vaccine is administered Newark on Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020. – EDWIN J. TORRES
Health care workers and long-term care residents are part of the first group, known as “1a” that will receive roughly half a million Pfizer and Moderna doses over the next several weeks.
“As more vaccine shipments arrive – and we anticipate Moderna’s vaccine will also be approved for its emergency use, our vaccination program will become more robust over the coming weeks,” Gov. Phil Murphy said on Tuesday.
“As one group of recipients receives their second dose, a new tranche of recipients will receive their first, basically overlapping waves.”
Six hospitals, including University Hospital, are getting the 76,000 Pfizer doses this week, according to New Jersey Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli, who said Tuesday was a “historic day” because of the vaccination.
They are Hackensack University Medical Center in its namesake city, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City. Cooper University Hospital in Camden and Atlantic Health Health’s Morristown Medical Center, according to Persichili.
According to Shereef Elnhal, University Hospital’s chief executive officer, the hospital was “completely booked” for vaccination appointments next week, and had well over 100 appointments next week, in “16 hour-per-day schedules.”
The 76,000 Pfizer vaccines will go to 47 acute-care hospitals this week, Persichilli said, followed by another 18 next week that will receive the Moderna doses next week, in the very likely event they get emergency federal approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
“In a very short period of time, we will be announcing a network of community-based providers that will be available to all health care workers,” Persichilli added.
Next will be the “1b” population, which includes essential workers, those above the age of 65 and those with pre-existing medical conditions.
Proponents contend that the vaccine is vital to bringing an end to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has run for nearly 10 months, claiming 17,000 lives and infecting over 400,000 New Jerseyans.
The pandemic is well in the realm of a second wave, which Murphy and Persichilli warned could be orders of magnitude worse than the first wave over the spring.
“We know this is not the end but we know that we are at least witnessing the beginning of the end” of the pandemic, Murphy added. “We are still in for several hard months and we are going to be really tough.”
Ramped up testing capacity has meant that more people would inevitably be tested and diagnosed. But state health officials warn that many other metrics they’ve used to determine whether the pandemic is worsening have all been heading in a worrying direction. Hospitalizations, ventilator usage and critical patient levels have reached numbers not seen since May.
That’s led to widespread speculation about what restrictions Murphy might reimpose to contain the virus. New York City and Pennsylvania are banning indoor dining, but Murphy said he will not follow course.
With widespread fears though about the availability of health care workers to respond to the second wave, Murphy has entertained banning elective surgeries so as to beef up manpower in the state’s hospitals.
