According to the New Jersey Department of Health, more than 7,430 residents and staff at long-term care facilities have succumbed to Covid-19. That number represents 41% of the state’s death toll. The disproportionate numbers reflect the reality that residents at these facilities are among the most susceptible to developing life-threatening symptoms after contracting the disease.
Yet, nursing home residents will have to wait another week to receive the vaccine after state officials missed a critical deadline. They were supposed to be inoculated starting today.
Per Fox News:
“In order to start on the 21st there was a deadline of the 7th … we missed that date by a day,” Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli admitted at a press conference Friday.
“We asked to start on the 21st and they said, ‘No, you’ll start on the 28th.’ It was as simple as that,” Persichilli said.
She blamed the “sheer volume of information that had to be inputted” for the more than 600 long-term care facilities, skilled nursing homes and assisted living facilities for the missed deadline.
The mishap comes as New Jersey is also getting 20 percent fewer doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines through the end of the year.
The governor of New Jersey is Democrat Phil Murphy.
The post State Misses Crucial Deadline To Give Nursing Home Residents, Staff Covid-19 Vaccine appeared first on American Action News.
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