New Jersey is expecting to have between 400,000 and 460,000 of both the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines by early January, should the two global drugmakers get federal emergency approval.

With both of them requiring two shots spaced roughly a month apart, that would mean up to 230,000 New Jerseyans that could get the vaccine, most of them health care workers and elderly residents.

“The Department of Health is working with many state, federal and local agencies to plan for a fast and equitable distribution of the vaccine,” New Jersey Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said in a Friday COVID-19 press briefing.

New Jersey health officials are hoping to inoculate 70% of adults, or 4.7 million residents, Persichilli said. Vaccination rates for the flu shot typically average out to 50% a year. For New Jersey to reach that goal, they would need to vaccine 87,000 New Jerseyans a day, five days a week.

That could prove a challenge, with a Rutgers University poll this week finding that nearly half of New Jersey adults were skeptical enough of the COVID-19 vaccine that they would not receive one.

“We need everybody to get in line to get it,” Gov. Phil Murphy said at the Friday press conference.

Those vaccines, Murphy and Persichilli argued, are vital to driving down the spread of the virus, which is in the midst of a second wave both in New Jersey and across the nation.

Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, said that their vaccines are showing a 95% effective rate, and so they announced Friday that they are applying that same day for emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Should the FDA approve the application, then Pfizer could begin administering vaccines as soon as early December.

“Our work to deliver a safe and effective vaccine has never been more urgent, as we continue to see an alarming rise in the number of cases of COVID-19 globally,” Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said in a Friday statement.

New Jersey would get a shipment of 130,000 doses in mid-December, with another 130,000 dose shipment later in the month – Persichilli said – and two shipments of 100,000 Moderna doses.

With fears that the state would be short of health care staff should they become infected and put out of commission, state health officials said the inoculation of medical workers is a first priority.

The latter half of the first phase would extend to New Jerseyans over the age of 65, those with underlying medical conditions, and those who live in congregate settings, Persichilli said.

The second phase entails any of those essential workers and high-risk residents who were missed during the first phase. State health officials plan for the vaccine to be widely distributed to the general public by April or May.

That timeline lines up with one laid out by outgoing-President Donald Trump: that the nation would have up to 30 million vaccine doses by the end of the year, and then that amount each month.

New Jersey has in recent weeks, been hit by a second wave of the pandemic. That’s triggered all-time record-high new daily cases. Hospitalizations, critical care patients and those on ventilators, as well as daily fatalities, have all hit their highest numbers since the spring.

“We have to get back in front of this virus as best we can right now, so when a vaccine – or multiple vaccines – are ready for wide-scale distribution in what we hope is just a matter of a few months we are in a stronger position for our vaccination program to work,” the governor said on Monday.

A nine-team Vaccine Task Force within the health department will focus on logistics, where the vaccine would be distributed, and “cold chain management.”

While the Pfizer vaccine has to be stored in sub-Arctic temperatures, the Moderna vaccine only requires refrigeration available at most hospitals, and as such could be more easily distributed to a wider range of health care facilities, Persichilli said.

Those would include acute care hospitals, local health departments, retail pharmacies, doctor’s offices, primary care clinics, and mobile and static urgent care centers.

More details of the vaccination plan will be announced on Monday, Murphy said.

“The distribution is really complicated,” the governor said on Friday. “We’ve got to make sure we got all oars rowing together.”