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Kramer: Vaccination Goal Is At Least 500 Shots A Day

Mayor Phil Kramer, upper left, said he would like to see 500 township residents receive COVID-19 vaccinations each day.

The vaccination rate in Franklin Township would have to be about 500 shots a day to reach “herd immunity” against COVID-19 by Labor Day, Mayor Phil Kramer said on January 13.

Kramer made the estimation during a virtual Town Hall meeting about vaccinations.

The Mayor said that his goal is to reach “herd immunity” through vaccinations by Labor Day. At a minimum, he said, to reach that goal, 70 percent of Franklin residents would have to be immunized.

“We have some ramping up to do,” Kramer said. “It’s my goal to make it so that the distribution in Somerset County and Franklin is not the limiting factor; the limiting factor will be how much vaccine we get, that’s something I have no control over.”

Kramer expressed frustration with the inconsistent supply of vaccine so far, which, he said, makes it hard to plan.

“A lot of people want to know when this is going to happen, and so do I,” he said. “We don’t know when the manufacturers are going to make what they make, don’t know when the federal government is going to give to the state, we don’t know when the state is going to give to us.”

“The big bottleneck is the doses,” he said.

Kramer’s frustration with vaccination distribution was echoed by Somerset County Commissioners Director Shanel Robinson.

Robinson said the number of doses the County receives changes weekly.

“Demand is exceeding supply,” she said.

“The first shipment was 500 doses, the second was 2,000,” she said. “We asked for 5,000, but we only received 2,000. That gives you an idea of what that inventory is like. Next, we’re expecting 1,800 doses, but that could change.”

Robinson said vaccinations are currently being given three days a week at different locations.

“Today we were in Bound Brook, next week we’re in North Plainfield,” she said. “We’re just waiting to see if we’re getting other doses.”

“We have it scheduled out, but it’s based on inventory,” Robinson said. “We can’t move to the next site until we have inventory on hand. It would be a mistake to not have inventory on hand.”

Robinson said the County is outfitting three vans to serve as mobile testing and vaccination sites.

“We’re pushing them for an aggressive timetable so they can get them to us in four to five weeks,” she said.

She said the County also bought a deep refrigeration system so that it could handle both the Moderna vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine, which has to stored at colder levels.

“We have cold refrigeration and cold storage,” she said.

Robinson said Quail Brook Golf Course in Franklin is still being looked at as a vaccination site, but she was not sure when vaccinations would begin there.

“That’s contingent on the frequency and the amount of inventory we need,” she said.

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