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New Jersey announced Thursday that people 65 and older and people with underlying health conditions will be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
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One of the health conditions that New Jersey people are now bumping into at the forefront of the queue is smoking.
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Only people aged 75 and over and essential workers are recommended to take the next turn, but U.S. officials recently called on states to expand the qualification.
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Officials are scrambling to speed up COVID-19 vaccinations across the U.S., but a complicated set of guidelines on who should be preferred has thwarted states’ efforts to maximize the number of gunshots.
In order to speed up implementation, Alex Azar, secretary of health and human services, said on Tuesday that states should expand the pool of people who have priority access. The pool should now contain Americans between the ages of 16 and 64 who have certain underlying health issues that increase the risk of developing severe COVID-19, he said.
As a result, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced that the state will extend the admission to the vaccine according to Azar’s recommendations from Thursday.
The decision will push the state’s two million cigarette smokers to the forefront of the vaccine, along with people with other high-risk medical conditions, including obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
“Nicotine is one of the most powerful addictions. Smoking puts individuals at higher risk for more serious diseases. As an individual who smokes COVID, they become ill much faster,” said Donna Leusner, director of communications for the state Department of Health. said in a statement Thursday.
“Our goal is to save as many lives as possible and to promote vaccination among the biggest risk groups,” she added.
In NJ, smokers can be vaccinated in front of teachers
New Jersey’s decision to expand its preferred vaccination potential means smokers could now be eligible to vaccinate with health workers, police officers and firefighters and residents aged 65 and over.
The move also catapults people with a history or current practice of smoking cigarettes in front of teachers and employees in public transportation.
According to CDC guidelines, essential workers need to be addressed among the following, but ultimately individual states decide to distribute their vaccines. States like New York are already recruiting teachers.
Governor Murphy’s announcement sparked outcry on social media, with people pointing out that smokers now have the highest priority over essential workers, who are disproportionately people of color.
According to Kristen Ehresmann, director of epidemiology, prevention and control of infectious diseases for the Department of Health in Minnesota, expanding the priority pool may be more of a problem than it is worth.
“There is some gain in efficiency, but there will be significant losses” in terms of fair vaccine and racial justice, she told STAT.
No proof required
Judy Persichilli, NJ’s health commissioner, told a news conference on Wednesday that the state would not ask for evidence that people smoke when they show up.
“No documentation of the medical condition or your age is required,” she said.
Twitter users have joked that the lax guidelines surrounding admission to new vaccine in New Jersey provide an easy opportunity to be vaccinated.
The expanded priority pool means four and a half million New Jersey residents – about half the state’s population – are now eligible for a vaccine.
In addition to the state’s two million smokers, the group also includes one and a half million residents aged 65 and older and up to one million people with other health conditions, according to Persichilli.
As of Thursday, New Jersey has only administered about 288,000 doses – about 6.5% of the eligible population – and the state has allocated only 731,000 doses, according to the Washington Post.
States cannot vaccinate all eligible candidates
Although not all states have followed Azar’s recent instructions (Florida and Texas opened vaccinations for residents over 65 in late December), the expansion of America’s vaccine priority pool means that any state is unlikely to have all its eligible residents in the nearby future.
There are 24 million health workers and residents of long-term care facilities, who are part of the first priority group. Americans over the age of 74 and essential workers in the front line, who make up about 49 million people, form two groups, followed by the 129 million Americans over the age of 64 or who had underlying health conditions.
Given Azar’s Tuesday announcement that all three groups should be bumped in front of the vaccine, more than 200 million Americans are now claiming a shot.
According to Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser of Operation Warp Speed, only half of many people will be vaccinated by March.
The rapid rollout of the US is already significantly behind Slaoui’s predictions.
He predicted last month that 50 million Americans would be vaccinated by the end of January. With only 17 days left until the deadline, only 11.1 million doses were administered and only 30 million doses were distributed, according to the CDC.
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