TRENTON, NJ – New Jersey this week eligible millions of people to get the covid-19 vaccine, including smokers, a move that led them to skip to the front of the vaccination.
Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy has qualified people 65 and older and those 16 and older with medical conditions to get the vaccine. It started Thursday. New Jersey’s list of conditions reflects that of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and includes cancer, kidney disease, and other diseases.
Smoking is also listed. Wait. Why?
Here’s a question from this week that looks at the news, take a closer look.
Why is smoking on a list of medical conditions?
It goes back to people who have a “significant risk” of the coronavirus. Smokers are included in the group because tobacco use impedes their lungs and COVID-19 is a respiratory disease, health officials say.
But there is more to it.
Murphy and New Jersey Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli said the state’s vaccination schedule is to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible, starting with those most at risk for serious illnesses due to the virus.
Murphy put it this way: “We can not be too bureaucratic about this.”
Teachers in particular have expressed concern that smokers could get the vaccine in front of them.
Do not divide people into ‘Job A versus Job B’, the governor said.
What about other states?
New Jersey, like other states, uses CDC guidelines to determine who is in which category. The 65-plus group and those with medical conditions, for example, are grouped together. Smokers are included in the CDC leadership, so that’s not the idea of New Jersey.
But what differs per state is when each group receives the vaccine. New Jersey started with health workers and staff in nursing homes and residents, and then moved on to first responders such as police and firefighters.
Next came the elderly and those with medical conditions, but other states went in different directions. Teachers, for example, are eligible in many states as part of what the CDC calls the 1b population, including neighboring New York and Pennsylvania, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, but not yet in New Jersey.
What is the problem with smoking anyway?
Smoking has in recent decades ranged from widespread and fashionable to shrinking and stigmatizing, as more information about its dangerous effects on human health has become known. Businesses and governments have cracked down on smoking in the workplace and at restaurants.
In 1998, a settlement between tobacco companies and most states restricted marketing, and businesses had to pay an annuity to states forever.
Health insurers also charge smokers extra.
Why, people ask, should someone who has deliberately started smoking know to be on an equal footing with, for example, an eight-year-old geneticist who is also at risk but does not smoke?
The state health department points out that nicotine in tobacco products is addictive and that people who smoke should stop and if they need help, they can get it on njquitline.org.
A bigger problem?
While the addition of smokers to the list of people eligible to be vaccinated has attracted attention, there is a bigger problem: the lack of vaccine supply.
New Jersey, for example, currently receives about 100,000 doses per week. However, Persichilli needs about 470,000 a week to meet the expected demand.
That would be enough to vaccinate 70% of the adult population, or 4.7 million people, within about six months, which is the state’s goal.
The governor put it this way: supply does not meet demand.
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