Union County Unveils New COVID-19 Vaccination Registration Site
UNION COUNTY, NJ — The Union County Board of County Commissioners announced on Wednesday the opening of an online registration system at www.ucnj.org for those eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccination.
The registration system will only log those who are currently eligible to receive the vaccination. Those who are ineligible to receive vaccinations right now will not be allowed to pre-register, and must wait until they are eligible.
On Wednesday, Gov. Phil Murphy said that people 65 and over will be allowed to get the vaccine as part of the second phase of vaccinations, phase 1B, as well as people 16-65 who have certain health conditions (read more here). People in those categories can register as of Thursday.
The state has already been vaccinating front-line workers, nursing home workers and residents, and certain other essential workers as part of phase 1A. Last Thursday, they added police and firefighters.
Union County is offering the Moderna vaccine. Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, including the Moderna vaccine, are a new type of vaccine that doesn't include the weakened virus, but teaches human cells to make a protein that triggers the immune response (read more about that here).
You can sign up at www.ucnj.org.
Union County Board of Commissioners Chairman Alexander Mirabella said Thursday: “The opening of an online registration system marks another step forward as we ramp up our vaccination efforts. In addition to taking all precautions in protecting ourselves from COVID-19, we certainly urge everyone to get vaccinated as soon as they are eligible.”
Commissioner Sergio Granados, who chairs the County’s Public Safety Committee, said: “We are working hard to vaccinate as many people as we can during this time. We have put into place measures such as a new registration page that will ensure we can meet the demand once the state provides more vaccines and moves into latter phases.”
The county’s COVID-19 vaccination clinic is located at Downs Hall at Kean University in Union, and is currently open five days a week from 3-7 p.m. Once more vaccines are available, the County is planning to offer the COVID-19 vaccine in different areas of the County.
This coming Tuesday, some towns, including Westfield, will participate in a day of remembrance for COVID-19 victims.
As of Wednesday, more than 382,000 Americans had died of the virus. (You can see which states had the highest death toll in the past week on this CDC map.)
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This article originally appeared on the Westfield Patch
