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If you’re among the 4.7 million New Jersey residents who will become eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, it won’t be as easy as calling your primary care doctor, officials warn.
Primary care and family physicians have struggled to obtain vaccine doses, leaving hospitals the largest distributors yet, said Dr Sean Cook, family physician and member of the board of directors of the New Jersey Association of Family Physicians, at NJ Advance Media.
Cook, who practices at Green Brook Family Medicine in Green Brook, said doctors’ offices looking to get vaccinated face barriers in acquiring the appropriate vaccine refrigerators and the vaccine itself.
“We ordered another vaccine refrigerator, which (the supplier) can’t even tell us when we’re getting them because they can’t make them fast enough,” Cook said.
The Pfizer vaccine requires ultra-cold storage which is difficult to set up for many doctor’s offices, while the Moderna vaccine can rely on more traditional refrigerators. Both vaccines require two injections several weeks apart.
“Some larger groups of doctors were able to meet the requirements, including vaccine storage needs (cold chain),” said Nancy Kearney, director of communications for the state Department of Health, in an email.
Bringing in family physicians as vaccine distributors could help speed up the process, Cook said. New Jersey hopes to vaccinate 70%, or 4.7 million people, by spring. So far, 264,000 doses have been administered.
“We know the regulations for purchasing, shipping, storage, administration, reporting – this daily practice for family physicians, honestly, there is really nothing new about it,” Cook said.
And having established relationships with patients can help allay any concerns people might have about the vaccine, which has sparked skepticism from some for its unprecedented rollout schedule, he said.
Cook said his firm had partnered with several county health departments and corporate clients to organize annual flu vaccination clinics, so they had experience with large-scale vaccination efforts.
But very limited supplies have made partnerships for the COVID-19 vaccine impossible so far, he said.
“At this point, even the people we have relationships with, they don’t have any vaccines yet,” Cook said.
There are currently over 100 sites offering the vaccine in New Jersey, including county health departments, grocery store pharmacies and state-run “mega sites.”
“As more and more vaccines become available, we definitely want to introduce it to more primary care offices,” Kearney said.
In addition to healthcare workers and first responders, smokers, people over the age of 65 and 1 million people with chronic illnesses will be eligible for the vaccine starting Thursday.
“I don’t think health departments and hospitals alone will be able to get enough vaccines,” Cook said.
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Katie Kausch can be reached at [email protected]. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
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