Union County Covid Vaccination Update: 5 Supermarkets Added, More

This story was updated at 12 p.m. on Friday, March 5.

UNION COUNTY, NJ — With 80,000 doses of the new Johnson and Johnson coronavirus vaccine sent to hospitals around New Jersey this week, people are beginning to see more availability for vaccine appointments statewide. On Friday, five new vaccine locations were added in Union County, including an Acme supermarket, a Stop & Shop, and three new ShopRites (see that list below).

Also, Friday morning after 6 a.m., six CVS stores in New Jersey had appointments available, including — if you're willing to drive —Central and South Jersey locations. CVS said more of its stores will get the vaccine in the near future.

"Johnson & Johnson's Janssen COVID-19 vaccine has been authorized for emergency use by the FDA," noted CVS on its appointment page. "Appointments now available in select locations. Check availability in your area below." Click here to see what's available at CVS.

Last month, Atlantic Health opened a vaccination site in Summit (See: New Coronavirus Vaccination Center To Open In Summit).

Seniors in Union County can call this number if they have no computer access: 908-613-7829, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 to 1 on Saturday.

Other vaccine updates in the past two weeks:

• Teachers and certain other essential workers will become eligible starting March 15. Find out more in this story.
• Some in New Jersey have been helped to find an appointment through social media groups, like New Jersey Covid Vaccine Info on Facebook, which has 67,000 members.
• Last week, Patch reported that young people in North Jersey have started volunteering to use their tech skills to get elderly residents a shot. READ MORE: Teen's New Group Finds Coronavirus Vaccines For Seniors

Besides registering for an appointment on the state's hub for any of the state's six megasites, the state has been updating its list of county sites (see this week's list below).

In addition to those locations, residents can try to find an appointment at their own local pharmacy, hospital, or medical office. Rite Aid's signup list is here.

More information about the vaccines

• Presently, the state's sites are vaccinating people in the 1A and 1B groups, including certain essential workers, seniors over 65, and people 16-65 with chronic medical conditions. Find out if you qualify by clicking this link.
• 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 Friday, more than 520,000 Americans had died of the virus. (You can see which states had the highest death toll in the past week on this CDC map.)

Here are the currently listed public vaccine sites in Union County, with the ones fully bolded that are new this week. Some of them have their own websites to sign up.

Most of these sites are currently only vaccinating people 18 and up, so double check before heading over.

Public vaccination sites in Union County

Acme Pharmacy #1096

Kenilworth
Union
18 years

mhealthappointments.com/covidappt

CVS Pharmacy

Elizabeth
18 years
(800) 746-7287
cvs.com/immunizations/covid-19-vaccine

CVS Pharmacy
Union
(800) 746-7287
cvs.com/immunizations/covid-19-vaccine

City of Elizabeth Health Department

418 Palmer St.

Elizabeth NJ, 07202
(908) 820-4250
Pre-register at https://covidvaccine.nj.gov/

Neighborhood Health Services - Plainfield

1700 Myrtle Avenue Plainfield
(908) 540-0229
nhscnj.org

Overlook Medical Center
99 Beauvoir Summit
Union
18 years

atlantichealth.org/

Rahway Health Department

1 City Hall Plaza Rahway
(732) 827-2000
cityofrahway.org

Riverside Medical Group Urgent Care Center Springfield
200 US Highway 22 Springfield
(973) 376-4341
riversidemedgroup.com

Robert Wood Johnson - Rahway
865 Stone Street Rahway
(732) 381-4200
rwjbh.org/covid19vaccine

ShopRite Pharmacy #159
Hillside
Union
18 years

vaccines.shoprite.com

ShopRite Pharmacy #163
76 Cenral Avenue
Clark
Union
18 years

vaccines.shoprite.com

ShopRite Pharmacy #164
Linden
Union
18 years

vaccines.shoprite.com

ShopRite Pharmacy #262
Union
Union
18 years

vaccines.shoprite.com

ShopRite Pharmacy Of Elizabeth
865 West Grand Street
Elizabeth
Union
18 years

vaccines.shoprite.com

Stop and Shop Pharmacy #0822
Elizabeth
Union
18 years

stopandshopsched.rxtouch.com/rbssched/program/covid19/Patient/Advisory

Trinitas Regional Medical Center

Thomas Dunn Sports Center 600 Pearl Street
Elizabeth
Union
18 years
(908) 994-8166

Union County - Kean University

1000 Morris Avenue Union, NJ 07083
ucnj.org/covid19/covid-19-vaccination/

Other information

• The state of New Jersey said Wednesday that it had confirmed 63 new deaths since the day before, bringing the total death toll from the virus statewide to 21,052. While daily deaths are down from the first month of the year, they are still much higher than the lowest rate of two new deaths reported back on Sept. 7.
• On Monday, the state said 1,865 patients statewide were hospitalized with the virus, 387 of those in ICU and 226 of those on ventilators.
• Gov. Phil Murphy reportedly said he'd like to start vaccinating the general public by Memorial Day.
• Here is the link you can use any time to see the updated list of people eligible in New Jersey.

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Here are statewide coronavirus resources:

• NJ COVID-19 Information Hub: https://covid19.nj.gov/
• General COVID-19 questions: 2-1-1
• NJ COVID-19 hotline: (800) 222-1222

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