New Jersey expands access to COVID-19 vaccines amid federal restrictions
Gov. Phil Murphy signed an executive order that allows anyone over 6 months to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
New Jersey has joined a growing cohort of states expanding access to updated COVID-19 vaccines amid restrictions from federal agencies.
Gov. Phil Murphy signed an executive order Tuesday that allows anyone over 6 months old to receive a COVID vaccine, and the New Jersey Department of Health issued a standing order that allows pharmacists to dispense it to anyone 3 years and older without a prescription.
Murphy said in a news release that children under age 3 can get COVID vaccines from a doctor. Anyone else can get a vaccine at a pharmacy in the state, he said.
“New Jersey is committed to defending the principles that safeguard our families and protect the health of our communities,” the state’s acting health commissioner, Jeff Brown, said in a statement. “This is about equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine, which has been proven to prevent serious illness and hospitalization.”
The new policy comes after the Food and Drug Administration, in an unusual move, approved last month COVID vaccines only for older Americans and certain at-risk groups.
Typically, the agency issues a general approval for the vaccines and, almost immediately afterward, an advisory committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends which groups should receive it.
But the committee has not yet issued its recommendation. The group that helps the CDC set vaccine recommendations, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, is set to meet Sept. 18.
And it is unclear what the committee might recommend: President Donald Trump’s top health officer, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is a longtime anti-vaccine activist. In June, Kennedy fired all ACIP members and handpicked new appointees for the committee, including several vaccine skeptics.
Several states, including Pennsylvania, have since moved to make access to vaccines — for COVID and for other diseases — less contingent on federal health agencies’ recommendations.
Pennsylvania’s regulatory body for pharmacists last week allowed pharmacists to dispense vaccines based on the recommendations of several leading professional medical organizations and the FDA.
Previously, the state had allowed pharmacists to give out vaccines only in accordance with “treatment guidelines” from a physician and ACIP. Pharmacists in Pennsylvania can now choose which agency or organization’s recommendations they wish to follow.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a disaster over the federal government’s approach to vaccines and signed an executive order expanding pharmacists’ ability to give out COVID vaccines, including allowing them to prescribe the vaccines themselves, through at least Oct. 5.
In Massachusetts, Gov. Maura Healey is now requiring insurers to cover vaccines recommended by the state’s health department, and not just those recommended by federal agencies.
The state’s health commissioner also issued a standing order allowing pharmacies to dispense COVID-19 vaccines to anyone 5 and older.