NJ nursing nursing home residents, staff begin COVID vaccinations

NEW JERSEY - New Jersey will begin vaccinating its nursing home residents and staff Monday. 90 locations across the state are scheduled for inoculations throughout the week, and that number is expected to increase as more facilities set up vaccination clinics with CVS and Walgreens, as part of a federal program.

New Jersey is starting vaccinations at long-term care facilities a week later than other states — including Connecticut and New York — because it missed a federal deadline by one day.

Following nursing home residents and staff, the pharmacies will begin vaccinating thousands living and working at assisted living facilities, development centers, federal housing for seniors, group homes and other facilities. 

In all, the Garden State has set aside roughly 500,000 Pfizer doses to cover about 17,000 facilities, according to state officials. The vaccination process is expected to run through January and into February. 

Vaccinating New Jersey's health care workers will also continue Monday. 

In an interview with CNN, Dr. Anthony Fauci estimated the coronavirus vaccine will be available to any American who wants it by the end of March or beginning of April, with herd immunity in the United States a few months after that. 

The rollout comes as COVID-19 cases continue to surge across the U.S. As of Saturday, one in 1,000 Americans have died from Coronavirus since the nation first reported infection in late January. 

Still, Dr. Fauci believes, the worst is yet to come. "I’ve described it as a surge upon a surge, because if you look at slope the incline of cases we’ve experienced into late fall and early winter, it really quite troubling," the nation's top infectious disease expert said Sunday. 

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