Few COVID-19 Shots, Few Locations: Ocean Co. Seniors Beg For Help

OCEAN COUNTY, NJ — If there was a doubt in anyone’s mind about how desperate Ocean County residents — especially those 65 and older — are to get vaccinated against COVID-19, a glance at videos and photos of the scene outside a Lakewood health center on Tuesday morning should have erased it.

On a blustery cold day, people showed up by the hundreds after word spread that CHEMED, a health center in the heart of Lakewood, would be taking walk-ins for vaccinations.

The Madison Avenue center’s parking lot was teeming with people well before the 10 a.m. start, News 12 New Jersey reported. As word spread about the clinic, dozens more arrived, all hoping to at last get vaccinated after weeks of trying in vain to secure vaccination appointments online.
Many were not successful.

Pete, a 67-year-old Manchester resident, said he and his wife headed to CHEMED after reading about the walk-in vaccinations. They were turned away after waiting in line for two hours, and CHEMED halted the walk-ins because it was so overwhelmed.

Pete said he is beyond frustrated at this point.

“My wife spotted it about 11 a.m. on the Vaccine Angels page,” said Pete, who asked that his last name not be published. The Vaccine Angels Facebook page is one of several sites they check every day, hoping to find a vaccination appointment.

“I’m 67. I’m a diabetic, I have COPD, I have it all,” he said. “I can’t get a shot.”

On the rare occasion that he’s found an appointment opening, it gets snapped up before he can finish filling out the forms. He found openings in Camden the other day, but by the time he input his information, the spots were all taken. “It’s terrible,” Pete said.

“I’m a fortunate one in that I drive,” he said. “There are so many here who are too old to drive.”

Pete’s story is one of hundreds repeated all over the state: older residents who live on their own and are trying — and failing — to get COVID-19 vaccination appointments in New Jersey. And over and over they say they feel abandoned by the state, especially in Ocean County.

Ocean County has the second-largest population of senior citizens in all of New Jersey’s counties, with its more than 138,000 trailing only the 165,000 in Bergen, according to 2019 U.S. Census Bureau numbers. Seniors make up 22.7 percent of Ocean County’s population of 607,000 people (Cape May County has a higher percentage of seniors, but its population is just over 92,000, smaller than Toms River.)

While New Jersey officials have put great emphasis on vaccinating seniors and others who live in long-term care facilities, those who live independently in their homes in age-restricted communities have been on their own to find a shot. There are just over 7,200 beds in Ocean County long-term care facilities, just a fraction of the overall number of seniors in the county.

So the demand for vaccinations among older residents far outstrips the current supply.

In January, New Jersey received about 111,000 vaccine doses per week, with that figure rising to more than 140,000 doses as of mid-February, according to data provided by the state Department of Health.

But how those doses are being distributed to the counties and other facilities is unclear. Health department officials could not provide a breakdown by county or by entity — including the hospital systems — of how those 140,000 doses were allocated.

Rite Aid, CVS and Walgreens have been receiving their doses directly from the federal government, so their doses are not part of the allotment sent to the state.

The Ocean County Health Department initially received 5,300 doses per week, as it was one of the most-prepared sites for getting the shots into arms, Daniel Regenye, the county’s public health coordinator, said during a recent telephone town hall focused on vaccine access issues hosted by Rep. Andy Kim.

As other sites ramped up, Ocean County’s allotment dropped to 2,900 to 3,000 doses per week, Regenye said. That number has stayed the same for the last several weeks, though the county was anticipating receiving 3,400 this week, said Brian Lippai, public information officer for the health department.

Regenye has said the county could vaccinate hundreds more people per day if it had sufficient supplies.

Related: Here's How To Get COVID-19 Vaccinations In Ocean County

The number of doses isn’t the only problem, especially for those in the senior communities in Ocean County; there’s a lack of sites administering doses as well.

Manchester Township, where 49 percent of the 43,000 residents are 65 or older, has two sites in Whiting providing COVID-19 vaccinations: the Rite Aid at 8B Lacey Road, and an unspecified CVS (there are two Whiting).

Toms River has four locations, one being the county health department clinic at the RWJ Healthcare Arena at Toms River High School North. Ocean Health Initiatives and Community Medical Center both are providing shots in Toms River, but the only non-health care facility offering them is the pharmacy at the Fischer Boulevard ShopRite.

There are no public vaccination locations in Berkeley Township, where 40 percent of the 42,000 residents are 65 or over, and the only location close to the cluster of 55-and-over communities on Route 37 where Berkeley, Toms River and Manchester touch is Community Medical Center.

Overall, there are just 18 sites administering the vaccine in Ocean County and no mega-sites. By comparison, Bergen County, which is home to one of the state’s six mega-sites, has 33 locations to get the vaccine into the arms of its 932,000 residents, about 30 percent more people than in Ocean County.

In neighboring Burlington County, with a population of about 445,300, there are 24 locations, including a mega-site and 10 Rite Aid pharmacies administering the shot.

An email to Rite Aid officials asking how sites were chosen and whether additional Ocean County locations would be added went unanswered.

“It is impossible to get an appointment to get the vaccine,” said Randell Dietrich, who lives in Berkeley Township. Dietrich, who is 75, said he and his 73-year-old wife are beyond frustrated.

“We have contacted and registered EVERYWHERE months ago,” he said. “Yes, in January we registered. But we are just told there is not enough vaccine.”

“Many residents are having problems getting appointments,” said Alicia Gordon, a retired registered nurse from Manchester who renewed her nursing license so she could volunteer with what she expected would be mass public vaccination efforts. “I myself was having problems even though I registered at several sites. It took my daughter and her two teenage daughters several attempts to finally get me an appointment in Atlantic City (where there's a mega-site) on the 24th of March!”

Gordon questioned why the county health department has not brought the doses directly to the senior communities — a question many residents have asked.

“Nobody’s bringing the shot to us like they’re doing in Newark and Jersey City,” said Pete, the Manchester resident who tried to get vaccinated at CHEMED.

Vaccination clinics in senior communities “are the way it should be done,” Kim said during the town hall.

State Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli has said part of the problem with localized vaccine distribution is the need for the deep-cold freezer temperatures for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, along with the need to repeat those clinics for second doses.

Both Persichilli and Gov. Phil Murphy have said the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine should give the state the flexibility it needs to deliver the vaccine on a more local level.

Persichilli and Murphy also have said the health department is working to address the situation of seniors who are unable to schedule appointments because they do not have internet access.

A call center was established at 855-568-0545, but weeks after it was launched seniors calling to have someone schedule an appointment for them over the phone have found help sporadic at best. People have reported that they've called and been turned away from making an appointment, told instead to go to the state's website.

Murphy on Monday said the problems will be addressed, but no timelines for when the center will be fully assisting residents have been given. appointment assistance will be available. Read more: NJ Expands COVID Vaccine Call Center As CVS Adds Sites

New Jersey has set a goal of inoculating 70 percent of the state's population by summer. As of Tuesday, there had been 2.13 million doses administered, according to the state's COVID-19 database. Of those, about 42 percent have been administered to state residents 65 and older. Read more: NJ Lagging Behind In Vaccine Goal: See Latest Data

None of that provides comfort to the thousands of seniors who are trying to get appointments or to the family members trying to assist them, and Murphy’s announcement Monday that teachers and thousands of other New Jersey residents will become eligible for the vaccine beginning March 15 has only added to their frustration.

“To open vaccine appointments to anyone under 65 unless they have contributing medical issues is ridiculous until the entire senior population who once a vaccine can get one,” Anne Fox of Toms River wrote in a comment on the Toms River Patch. “I am on at least eight different sites every day and no first-dose appointments are available. While I do understand the lack of supply and continued major demands, why wouldn't you put groups at risk first and foremost?”

“I would like to be able to leave my house,” Elaine Schwerin wrote. “My husband is 76 with MS and I am 71 with COPD.”

Those sentiments and similar desperation are what led so many residents to try to walk in at the CHEMED Health Center offering in Lakewood on Tuesday.

A reader named Hannelore had taken her 88-year-old mother to CHEMED in the 28-degree weather on Tuesday and was angered when they were turned away at 12:40 p.m., she wrote in an email to Patch.

"This experience was not only upsetting to my mother, it also added undue stress making her feel like a second-class citizen,” Hannalore wrote, adding they are on the state’s waiting list. “Why is it so hard for the elderly to get these shots and they keep opening up the list for more age brackets and conditions?”

Alicia Persson described the situation at CHEMED on Tuesday as “insanity.”

“Seniors trying to cut people off in their cars just to cut the line and even worse were the seniors trying to run across Route 9 — into the path of traffic,” Persson wrote. “I have never witnessed such madness.”

“There must be a better way,” she said.

Regenye said county health officials remain committed to getting the shots distributed on a more local level, and have talked with town officials in several towns about the potential for local clinics. “We are in touch and in tune with the needs of our community.”

But until the county has sufficient vaccine doses in hand — as of last week, the county health department had administered 38,000 vaccinations out of 102,000 doses received by county residents, meaning most are going elsewhere to get vaccinated — localized community clinic will remain in the planning stages.

“Ocean County has been left behind,” said Dietrich, the Berkeley resident who’s still waiting, too. “I guess those that are allocating the vaccine have decided that the older people (which is a large proportion of this population) can just drop dead. It doesn't matter since they are no longer working.”

Note: This article has been updated to reflect that Rite Aid in Whiting is providing COVID-19 vaccine inoculations.

Click here to get Patch email notifications, or download our app to have breaking news alerts sent right to your phone. Have a news tip? Email karen.wall@patch.com Follow Toms River Patch on Facebook.