NJ Statewide Error Causes COVID Vaccine Scheduling Problems

NEW JERSEY — As though it wasn't hard enough to snag a COVID-19 vaccination appointment, now a statewide error is causing even more issues.

Gov. Phil Murphy said during his Friday press conference that the system was causing residents to be double-booked on Thursday.

"Unfortunately we had to cancel a number of appointments that were erroneously double booked. We will work with those canceled on rescheduling at the nearest available time. We regret the confusion this technical issue caused and are working with our vendor — and as you can imagine those exchanges are spirited — to address the root cause," said Murphy.

Donna Leusner, a spokeswoman with the Department of Health, said the state "worked with our vendor overnight to address it. We continue to monitor the system. We regret the confusion this technical issue caused."

Somerset County also sent out an alert to residents on Thursday night notifying them of the state's issue adding.

"A statewide error in the state’s COVID vaccination pre-registration and scheduling system has caused many Somerset County residents utilizing the state system to be incorrectly informed they are not Somerset County residents," according to Somerset County.

As of Friday, Murphy said the state has administered 724,371 vaccines, which is 44,00 more since Thursday.

The state also reported 5,023 new positive coronavirus cases for Friday bringing the state's total to 615,202.

"We have more shots in the arms than cumulative positive test results," said Murphy.

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