Process for Covid-19 Vaccination Is Streamlined in Populous Essex County, N.J. – The Wall Street Journal

LIVINGSTON, N.J.—Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Maya Lordo was working to implement a plastic-straw ban.

Last week, the Essex County, N.J., health officer was holed up at a makeshift nurse’s station in the former men’s department of a closed Sears store that was turned into a vaccination site. With a computer on her lap, she fielded phone calls from vaccine seekers and answered questions from nurses and volunteers.

While many local health departments across the country have struggled to get vaccination efforts up and running efficiently and provide basic information to citizens about how to acquire shots, residents in Essex County—New Jersey’s third most populous—have been getting plenty of useful information. The county has designed and staffed a program to vaccinate thousands of people a day with an online sign-up process. While officials struggle at times with supply hiccups caused by slow-to-arrive vaccines, Essex County said it is using 100% of its doses every week, with surrounding counties coming to it for advice.

As of Jan. 15, 31 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines had been distributed nationwide, but only 12 million people had received their first doses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Essex County, police officers and sheriff’s deputies usher doses of Moderna Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine to sites. Extra shots are rushed to the local prison and promptly injected so they don’t go to waste. College students and laid-off moms volunteer to work at registration desks and answer phones. Patients who receive shots at schools line up 6 feet apart next to gym lockers.