By: Michael Mandarino, Follow South Jersey Managing Editor
TRENTON, N.J. — As New Jersey continues to ramp up its COVID-19 vaccination effort, the state has launched a beta version of its COVID-19 vaccine appointment finder.
The beta lists off every single location where vaccines are being administered throughout the state and shows how many appointments are available at each spot. Users don’t have to sift through one massive page of vaccine sites, though, as the beta allows you to filter your search by county. It also allows you to only pull up results of locations that have open appointments.
For example, filtering the search by sites that have open appointments in Gloucester County shows openings at the COVID-19 vaccine mega site located at Rowan College of South Jersey’s Gloucester campus at the time of publication — approximately 11 a.m. on Monday. Since the RCSJ-Gloucester mega site is run by the state, the vaccine finder prompts you to register for New Jersey’s vaccine wait list before you can make an appointment.
In addition to state-run vaccination sites, the COVID-19 vaccine finder beta lists off pharmacy chains such as CVS, Rite Aid, and Walgreens that have been authorized to administer doses of the vaccine throughout the state. Although some of the pharmacy chain listings indicate whether or not appointments are available, others don’t — leading to a guessing game of sorts that requires users to visit each respective pharmacy’s website to check up on vaccine availability.
Although there is some guess work involved in finding whether or not particular locations are offering vaccines, the COVID-19 vaccine finder beta is an immensely helpful tool that should help New Jerseyans get inoculated against the global pandemic.
On Monday, all adults aged 55 and older along with a number of workers in essential fields — including members of the press, higher education educators, real estate/building workers, and sanitation/utility workers — officially became eligible to get vaccinated in New Jersey. Here is the full list of people who are now eligible to get vaccinated in New Jersey:
- Food production, agriculture, and food distribution
- Eldercare and support
- Warehousing and logistics
- Social services support staff
- Elections personnel
- Hospitality
- Medical supply chain
- Postal and shipping services
- Clergy
- Judicial system
New Jersey’s COVID-19 dashboard reported a total of 4,701,725 COVID-19 vaccine doses administered statewide as of 9:50 a.m. on Monday. The state administered more than 500,000 doses of the vaccine models for the fifth straight week, but last week’s vaccination totals climbed to nearly 700,000. The dashboard reports that 1,796,798 New Jerseyans are now fully vaccinated against the pandemic after receiving the second shot of Pfizer and Moderna’s models or the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Governor Phil Murphy has said multiple times that all New Jersey adults will be eligible to get vaccinated beginning May 1, which is consistent with President Joe Biden’s wishes. For now, however, the state’s newly-launched COVID-19 vaccine finder should prove to be a helpful tool for those eligible to get vaccinated.
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