New Hoboken Group Will Help Hudson County Residents Find Vaccines

HOBOKEN, NJ — Before Hoboken resident Jennifer Delgado's grandmother passed away last year, Delgado promised she would take care of her grandfather, 93. After helping her grandfather book a coronavirus vaccine appointment recently, Delgado decided to do the same for others.

Now, she's collected a cadre of volunteers to help eligible Hudson County residents find a vaccine appointment in the area. She says that if she gets enough assistance, the group may be able to help those in nearby counties as well.

With thousands of doses of the new Johnson and Johnson vaccine recently sent to New Jersey, medical sites and chain stores like CVS have made more appointments available, but that doesn't mean that everyone has the technical knowledge, family support, or means to find one. (See Hudson County list of vaccine sites here.)

[Related: The Unusual Questions Hoboken Covid Hotline Volunteers Were Asked In Past Year]

"This group was born from a promise I made to my beloved grandmother [in Monmouth County], who passed away in September," Delgado said this week. "She was survived by my 93-year-old grandfather, and I promised that our family would take care of him and her two elderly sisters. ... I started thinking about how difficult it was for so many people who would benefit most from the vaccine to book appointments, and I decided to do something about it."

She added, "We have 11 volunteers so far, and we are ready and willing to help those who need a hand. Our volunteers collectively speak nine different languages, so we are happy to try to accommodate requests from non-English speakers."

Delgado said that if people want help from her group, or want to volunteer, here's how:

"Anyone who lives or works in Hoboken or the surrounding areas who is eligible to receive a vaccine in NJ may request assistance by emailing us at hobokenc19vaxxvolunteers@gmail.com with their name and telephone number. If the resident requesting assistance feels comfortable, they may also choose to provide further detail such as how far they can/are willing to travel, whether they have access to a car, any scheduling concerns, or if a doctor has instructed them to get a certain brand of vaccine. We do not suggest that an individual provide personal information in their email to us that they would not want to appear in a Google search. However, in order for us to book the appointment, we will need basic information such as name, birthday, address, phone number, and email address. We will not take insurance information or Social Security numbers."

(Note that Hoboken's CERT volunteers can also help seniors and others with questions and assistance related to covid tests and vaccines; call 201-420-5620 or 201-420-5625 weekdays.)

Delgado noted, "There are other groups doing this across the state ... but we wanted to ensure everyone in our community had access to an appointment if they needed it." (See related story about Union County vax-unteers here.)

Local vaccine sites and information on types of vaccines

After CVS announced plans to offer vaccines at 30 more stores in New Jersey this coming weekend, more appointments were available early Friday morning, including in Hoboken, Newark, and several Bergen County sites. You can click here to see what's available right now at CVS.

Watch Patch this weekend for an updated list of vaccine sites and ways to get help in Hudson County.

Find out if you're currently eligible in New Jersey by clicking this link.

What type of vaccine do you want?

Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, including the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, 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).

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is more traditional (see stories about all three vaccines here and here.) Doctors say that the important metric is that all three are effective in preventing serious illness and death from covid, and that having the majority of the public vaccinated, no matter which vaccine, will lessen the spread.

As of this week, more than 530,000 Americans have died of the virus. (You can see which states had the highest death toll in the past week on this CDC map.)

Read a recent story about a Hoboken family who were covid long-haulers here.

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