Hundreds Of Veterans Receive COVID-19 Vaccine

By: Follow South Jersey Staff

RUNNEMEDE, N.J. — More than 800 Veterans of all ages were administered the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the Harry Williams Community Center in Runnemede on Saturday, March 27. The vaccine clinic was sponsored by the Camden County Office of Veterans Affairs and Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center.

“Ensuring that every member of our community is vaccinated is critical to ending this pandemic and bringing back a sense of normalcy to our community,” County Commissioner Director Louis Cappelli, Jr. said. “Working hand-in-hand with the VA has been an extremely important partnership to getting Veterans into a clinic with doctors and staff that they know, and trust and it gets the county one step closer to herd immunity.”

Camden County and the Borough of Runnemede welcomed the opportunity to provide an expansive site for the operations and worked tirelessly to make whatever modifications were needed to the space to accommodate Veterans and provide for privacy and social distancing in a safe place.

“We are so grateful to Camden County for providing us this space and being such a committed partner with us in the fight against COVID-19,” Rear Admiral Karen Flaherty-Oxler (RET), Medical Center Director, said. “The ability to bring our vaccine to Southern Jersey Veterans has enabled our Veterans in this region to be able to get vaccinated close to home.”

Crescenz has vaccinated over 43,000 veterans to date. Of that number, roughly 1,800 were vaccinated at the Runnemede facility.  CMCVAMC is also holding vaccination clinics at its Saracini CBOC in Willow Grove, PA and at the main hospital today as well.  Between all three clinics, a total of more than 1,700 Veterans will be vaccinated today.

The clinics are all by appointment only.  There are no walk-ins accepted.  If you are registered and eligible to receive VHA healthcare within the hospital system, please call (215) 823-4014 to schedule your appointment today.  The main hospital holds vaccination clinics Monday through Saturday and appointment lines are open on these same dates to help schedule vaccination appointments.


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