TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - New Jersey opened its second mass testing site for administering the COVID-19 vaccine on Monday.
Gov. Phil Murphy and Senate President Steve Sweeney, both Democrats, toured the facility at Rowan College in Gloucester County. A similar site opened Friday at a mall in Rockaway, Morris County.
The sites, which are designed to vaccinate over 2,000 people a day, are open now just for health care workers, police and fire officials. More than 100,000 doses of the vaccine of the roughly 400,000 the state has received have been set aside for long-term care staff and residents.
Murphy also said Monday that more than 200,000 people have been vaccinated in the state so far, double the number from a week ago.
There are also 200 sites at pharmacies, hospitals and urgent cares across the state that are dispensing the vaccine as well, but Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli said the state has greater demand than supply of the shot.
“We’re asking for your patience as we await a larger supply,” she said.
More than 1 million people have signed up for the vaccine on the state’s pre-registration site, she added.
New Jersey is aiming to vaccinate 70% of the adult population, or about 4.7 million people, by about June, Persichilli has said.
A look at other developments:
EXAMS WAIVED
New Jersey seniors won’t have to take standardized graduation assessments, Murphy said.
He said his administration was waiving the 12th-grade graduation assessment because of the pandemic.
He said “to not make adaptations” because of how the outbreak has affected to students would amount to a failure.
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THE NUMBERS
Hospitalizations were up slightly to about 3,600 compared with the end of last week, but similar to where they’ve been over the last month.
The death toll climbed by 51 overnight to 17,873.
That’s according to daily state Health Department figures
The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in New Jersey has risen over the past two weeks from 4,652.29 new cases per day on Dec. 27 to 6,005.43 new cases per day on Sunday, according to from Johns Hopkins University.
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