Update: Mercer County Community College vaccination clinics set for end of the month, not open to the general public

Two COVID-19 vaccine clinics will be held at Mercer County Community College on Jan. 28 and 29, but they aren’t open to the general public to schedule appointments.

The college has received a large volume of calls from area residents desperate to get a vaccine after local and county officials announced last week that the college would be a future vaccination site. One local health officer said last week the college would be able to administer 1,000 to 2,000 vaccines a day.

A spokesman for Mercer County Community College told Planet Princeton Tuesday that the Mercer County Health Department will run a COVID-19 vaccination clinic on Mercer County Community College’s West Windsor campus on January 28 and 29, and that MCCC staff and faculty will be assisting the county at the clinic.

“It’s important to note that this particular clinic is not open to the general public. The focus of the closed clinic will be health care and emergency services workers, including MCCC students in the professional phases of health professions programs such as nursing, radiography, physical therapist assistants, and medical laboratory technologists,” wrote MCCC Director of Public Relations Paul Healy in an email. “The others receiving vaccinations will be those in the 1-A category who are selected by municipalities in the county participating in the clinic.”

It is uncertain what the future is for clinics at MCCC. The county health department is running the clinics and a determination has not been made about future clinics. Vaccine supply is also an issue.

College officials and staff can’t help callers who are calling them trying to schedule appointments. The county is running the clinics and local health departments participating in the clinics are the ones pulling names from municipal waiting lists for clinic participants.

County officials announced near the end of last week that the CURE Arena in Trenton would be a county vaccination site, and would be run by Capital Health. Officials were planning for a soft opening for the new vaccination site this week. More details have not yet been provided. We will post a story with an update and also when it becomes available.

Gov. Phil Murphy announced on Tuesday that New Jersey is expected to receive another 100,000 vaccine doses in the next week. He said he hopes the process of the state receiving COVID-19 vaccines will be sped up once the Biden Administration takes over.

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Krystal Knapp is the founding editor of Planet Princeton. Follow her on Twitter @krystalknapp. She can be reached via email at editor AT planetprinceton.com. Send all letters to the editor and press releases to that email address.