Who Gets Vaccinated First?

Phase 1A: All paid and unpaid people who work in a healthcare setting who may have direct or indirect contact to people with covid-19, and anyone in a congregant living setting (including incarcerated people)

Phase 1B: Police, fire department, frontline essential workers, and people ages 75 and up.

Phase 1C: Other essential workers, people ages 65-74, and people ages 16-64 with high risk medical conditions.

Where Do We Get Vaccinated?

There are currently over 200 vaccination sites around the state, (17 facilities open in Essex County) as well as six mega sites. For information on sites that are providing the vaccine, please visit: https://covid19.nj.gov/pages/healthcare-worker-covid-19-vaccine-locations. This site will be updated as more locations are added. Anyone who lives, works, or attends school in NJ can get vaccinated at one of the NJ sites.

See the NJ Vaccine Webguide by Morris School District for registering at specific sites around New Jersey.

https://mhs.msd.libguides.com/covidvax

How Much Does It Cost?

There is NO cost or copay for the COVID-19 Vaccine. You will not be turned away if you don't have insurance. Based on the CDC COVID-19 Vaccination Program Provider Agreement, all providers must vaccinate individuals regardless of whether they have health insurance coverage or what type of coverage they have, and are prohibited from balance billing or otherwise charging vaccine recipients.

How Does It Work?

Vaccines work by triggering a person's immune system to develop protection against a disease. COVID-19 vaccines help our bodies develop immunity to the virus that causes COVID-19 without us having to get the illness. In testing, both approved vaccines were more than 94% effective.

Both of the vaccines that have received an FDA Emergency Use Authorization to date -Pfizer and Moderna- are messenger RNA vaccines (mRNA). Unlike many other vaccines which put a weakened or inactivated germ into our bodies, mRNA vaccines when injected instruct our cells how to make a protein—or even just a piece of a protein—that triggers an immune response inside our bodies. That immune response, which produces antibodies, is what protects us from getting infected if the real virus enters our bodies.

Pfizer and Moderna vaccines each require two doses to be effective. When you receive the first dose, you will be scheduled for your second. Pfizer doses are taken 21 days apart and Moderna doses are taken 28 days apart. Do not mix and match vaccines- if you get your first dose with Pfizer, don't get your second from Moderna, or visa versa.
We don't know whether someone who has completed vaccination can still spread the virus. There may still be asymptomatic infection. What we do know is that the vaccine prevents symptoms from COVID-19.