How does New Jersey allocate its COVID-19 vaccinations to each county?
Residents throughout New Jersey have wondered how the state chooses to allocate its COVID-19 vaccinations to each county. Many esidents have been trying to get a COVID-19 vaccination since mid-December of last year.
At the governor’s briefing today, Commissioner of Health, Judy Persichilli outlined how the Department of Health allocates its weekly covid-19 federal vaccination shipments.
The federal government allocates vaccinations for New Jersey on Tuesday of each week. Those doses are directly delivered Monday of the following week to each vaccination location.
The total number of doses received varies from week to week. Next week, New Jersey will receive 494,430 doses which include first doses, booster doses, and Johnson & Johnson doses.
Vaccinations Allocation
There are over 600 vaccination locations across the state of New Jersey. Each location requires a weekly inventory check to see how many vaccinations they will receive the following week. “We look at equity, disease burden, SVI (social vulnerability index) and inventory on hand to determine how many vaccines each site will receive.”, Persichilli noted.
Equity
The Department of Health works to send doses to locations which administer to the most under represented populations to increase the equitible distribution of vaccines to theses areas.
Disease Burden
Along with equitable distribution, allocation is based on disease burden. Municipilaties and counties do not all share the same disease burden. Persichilli said one of the data pieces used to find disease burden is to calculate, “the covid-19 deaths per hundred thousand in that municipality or county.”
Social Vulnerability Index (SVI)
Social vulnerability index is also used to determine allocatoin of doses. Data such as the percent of those in poverty and the percent of individuals of color in a particular communitity are used. As well as “percent of individuals who do not have a car for instance.” Persichilli added.
Inventory and Ability to Dispense Vaccinations
The last data point used to determine allocation is a location’s current inventory and how many daily vaccinations it can complete. Persichilli explained, “We look at how many doses can each point of dispensing moves through in a day. We don’t want to give them more than they can handle because then the doses sit on the shelf. We have a rule that you have to start dosing within 24 hours of getting the vaccine.”
“We do this for all 600 sites and then we start allocating depending on how fast, how quickly, how efficiently and how many doses we can move by the end of the week and then start all over again.” said Persichilli.
Vaccinations Breakdown for Next Week
New Jersey will receive 494,430 COVID-19 vaccination doses next week. The breakdown of doses is below.
Primary Doses (First Dose)
148,500 Pfizer
87,400 Moderna
Booster Doses (Second Dose)
119,300 Pfizer
87,400 Moderna
Johnson & Johnson (One Dose Needed)
51,700
Visit https://www.nj.gov/health/cd/topics/covid2019_dashboard.shtml for more information. Visit our home page to search for a provider near you.
