Camden County Adds COVID-19 Vaccine Appointments For Boost NJ Day

GLOUCESTER TOWNSHIP, NJ — The Camden County Health Hub is adding COVID-19 vaccination appointments on Wednesday as the state recognizes one year of vaccine availability, county officials announced on Tuesday.

The Health Hub will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday in order to provide more access and opportunity for adult booster shots, pediatric first doses and Pfizer booster shots for 16- and 17-year-olds.

It’s part of the statewide Boost NJ event, in which the state Department of Health is working with more than 2,000 vaccination sites to offer expanded walk-in availability and extended hours to increase vaccine accessibility. Read more here: COVID Booster Shots Now Available For More NJ Teens

This will include more than 40 sites in the Cooper University Health Care network that will offer COVID-19 vaccine appointments, including all Cooper Primary Care, Cooper Care Alliance, Cooper General Pediatrics, and Cooper Obstetrics and Gynecology offices. Patients of MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper and the Early Intervention Program are also able to receive the vaccine at those locations. Current patients can schedule an appointment through their myCooper account. Those without a myCooper account can create one here.

“As we enter the winter months, we encourage people not to take a chance with COVID-19 variants and make sure to get their first, second, or booster vaccine dose. The vaccines are the most effective protection against serious illness and hospitalization,” Cooper University Health Care Louis Bezich said.

Appointments at the Camden County Health Hub can be made at www.CamdenCountyVaccine.com.

“Thinking back to one year ago, it seems like we were in a completely different world,” Camden County Commissioner Director Louis Cappelli Jr. said. “We were just administering the very first dose of the Pfizer vaccine and didn’t know what the future would hold. But thanks to the remarkable collaborative work that elected officials, healthcare professionals and residents did over the past year, we’ve been able to get to where we are now, with more than 325,000 people in the county fully vaccinated and counting.”

"Walk-in availability and extended hours are important to make access to boosters as easy as possible," State Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said on Monday. "With cases increasing, it is critical that more residents get boosters because we know immunity is waning."

The event will also see the opening of a new COVID-19 vaccination megasite will open in the former Lord & Taylor store at the Bridgewater Commons Mall in Somerset County, State Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli announced. It will be the third megasite reopened in the Garden State, following the reopening of sites in Gloucester and Burlington counties.

“Opening up new appointments as we move further into the holiday season is the right and necessary thing to do for our community,” Cappelli said. “We want all of our friends and neighbors to be as protected as possible as we manage the spread of the Omicron variant, and we continue to deal with the Delta variant of Covid-19. I hope everyone takes advantage of this opportunity to get boosted for the holiday season.”

In addition, to the special operating hours on Dec. 15, officials will discuss the next phase of changes will be coming to the facility.

Beginning on Dec. 20, COVID-19 testing will be offered at the Health Hub from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., Monday through Friday. The vaccine clinic will continue to operate from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday. The Health Hub is located at 200 College Drive in the Blackwood section of Gloucester Township.

“Health officials are now recommending that all adults get a booster shot, regardless of prior health qualifiers,” Cappelli said. “With case counts increasing and the holidays coming up, we need all of the protection we can possibly get. So please, get a booster shot and if you haven’t done so already, please get your first or second dose.”

As of Monday, there have been 65,484 coronavirus cases and 1,379 coronavirus-related deaths in Camden County since the pandemic began in March 2020.

As of Monday, 373,014 Camden County residents have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 327,926 are fully vaccinated and 102,714 have received a third dose.

More information regarding vaccination rates throughout the county and available on the state’s COVID-19 dashboard at covid19.nj.gov.

The Camden County Health Department is continuing to closely track new cases of COVID-19 and information regarding the prevalence of the Delta variant. New cases are often reassigned to other municipalities over the course of an investigation.

This article originally appeared on the Gloucester Township Patch