Appointments for COVID-19 vaccines at CVS pharmacies in N.J. filled up right after the registration portal opened
On Thursday, CVS expanded its vaccine administration program, expanding from 11 states to 19 states, including New Jersey.
A day later than was anticipated, CVS opened up the registration portal on its website for residents of New Jersey to book appointments for COVID-19 vaccines at 27 pharmacy locations in the state. In under an hour, most of the appointments across the state were booked.
The scenario Thursday, as residents tried to register for vaccines, was a familiar one of frustration that has repeated itself across the state as thousands of people all scrambled to try to register online for vaccines at the same time. Many area residents who went on the CVS website Thursday morning logged on right when the appointment portal opened. They waited 30 to 40 minutes in an online queue for the website scheduling page called the “vaccine waiting room page” to be refreshed, only to then be told no appointments were left.
CVS announced last week that beginning Feb. 9, the company would take registrations for the vaccine at 27 New Jersey locations. The company was allotted 19,900 doses total to be distributed at the New Jersey sites, or just under 800 doses per site. New appointments will open up when the drugstore chain is allotted more vaccines.
Following is a list of the towns in New Jersey where CVS is offering COVID-19 vaccinations. All of the locations were fully booked Thursday morning. CVS does not appear to be taking registrations for a waitlist.
| City/Town | Status |
|---|---|
| Brigantine, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Cedar Grove, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Chatham, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Dumont, NJ | Fully Booked |
| East Brunswick, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Edison, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Elizabeth, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Flemington, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Green Brook, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Hackettstown, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Harrison Township, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Hazlet, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Highlands, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Ledgewood, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Northvale, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Princeton, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Ringwood, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Seaside Heights, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Tabernacle, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Union, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Union City, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Vernon, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Villas, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Vineland, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Voorhees, NJ | Fully Booked |
| West Orange, NJ | Fully Booked |
| Whiting, NJ | Fully Booked |
Status as of 10:26 AM ET
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.
It would be good to know when appointments will be available again.
When will you be making appts again?
We are journalists covering the story. This is not a portal for CVS. As per the story, CVS does not know when more vaccines will be available yet, and more appointments will open up when CVS receives more vaccines. Thanks
When I looked this morning (6:15 am) there were appointments available at some locations that previously said they were fully booked.
When you click on your state through CVS as of 6 am February 13th, NJ and many other states say available for booking and then when you click to book , it says already booked. It’s very misleading. The same thing happened at 4 am yesterday. This is very frustrating and needs to be rectified. I dont know why the states are showing available appointments when they are not available.
Well okay, journalists covering the story. MIGHT IT BE POSSIBLE TO FIND OUT when CVS will receive more vaccines? Or when a portal might open? We’re over here flying in the dark. Utter goddamn lunacy.
In many cases, even the vaccination sites don’t know when they will be getting more doses, or how many. We created this statewide list of all the vaccine sites, and volunteers are updating it regularly. This week we will be adding pharmacies. But often as soon as a portal opens and accepts appointments, they fill up within minutes. A resident who volunteers updating the sheet seems to think the CVS appointment portal adds appointments around 4 a.m. some days. We wish we had more info., and understand your frustration. The link to our volunteer and crowd-sourced document: https://bit.ly/crowdsourcevaccineinfonj
When can I register for my and my husband to be vaccinated
Im a senior citizen been trying for a month for 2 hours every day to get appointment at every NJ site. This is the most inefficient disaster I have ever encountered! Journalist please get us some answers on best times, most likely sites getting vaccines, etc. so we can narrow this down some!!! Thank you!
I am a health card working working with post COVID patients in Hunterdon and I have YET to receive the vaccine. Go figure!!!!
My Mom is 80 years old with dementia, lives with me and I am her caregiver. On approx January 8th I put her on the list for the NJ Vaccine Scheduling system on a a Sussex County NJ website, and on January 9th I got a confirmation that she was in line and would be notified when appointments became available. Sounded good to me at the time! But turns out the system is obviously BROKEN and there is no waiting line! A few days ago (Feb 12th) I got a text from my sister in law saying she had just made 2 covid vaccine appointments (one for her Mom and one for her Dad) for the Sussex county fairgrounds vaccine site – the VERY SITE where I had expected my Mom to get offered a vaccine appointment! I immediately went online to try to grab an appointment for my Mom and my sister in law offered to also try to sign my Mom up on her computer (I gave her my Mom’s date of birth), and it was already too late for both of us who tried – no appointments were available. What is upsetting is that right after this failed attempt to get an appointment, I checked my email (which I do multiple times each day) and neither the NJ Vaccine scheduling system nor the Sussex County Fairgrounds location had emailed me to say there were appointments available…..yet my sister in law who had never put her parents on the waiting list happened to be on the website at the right time and snagged two appointments. This system is TOTALLY broken and seems to be based on a fantasy that there is a line and when appointments become available we will be notified when we are at the front of the line. It feels like a slap in the face that the last 2 Saturdays the NJ Dept of health Vaccine Scheduling System emailed me to say my Mom is still registered and vaccines are in short supply…..yet others who never got in line got vaccinated on February 12th at the very place my Mom was in line for since January 8th. This tells me they don’t know what they are doing and there is no line even though they say there is a line.
I encourage everyone who is asking for journalists to get them answers for their vaccine questions to become a financial supporter of Planet Princeton. It is incredible that our well-financed state government with paid employees can’t this information out to the taxpayers. Planet Princeton does an amazing job on a shoe-string budget and needs to be supported by it’s readers. Think of it as our local NPR-news station (though it’s not NPR affiliated).
My SECOND Dose was rescheduled due to snow at a time that I am absolutely unable to make it. I canceled the appointment and called the NJDOH as directed to reschedule. They were unable to help. Now I am out a second dose vaccine with no appointment in site.
I have been trying to navigate New Jersey’s pitiful vaccine rollout registration system from Connecticut for a friend. Very disheartening and puzzling to read some of the comments. Connecticut managed to get organized – what the “heck” is going on in New Jersey???? Shameful. Buy more vaccine, for crying out loud, and do a better job getting needles in arms !
Cvs your website is terrible,most of the people can not get an appointment when it says available.please be nice and make changes to your sites.Thanks.
@Sarra Why are you posting this here? This isn’t CVS’s website and they don’t read this.