With Morris County Megasite Closed, Vaccine Focus Shifts Locally

MORRIS COUNTY, NJ — The pandemic isn't over, but one major chapter ended. The Morris County Regional COVID-19 Vaccination Center administered its final dose Friday before entering into spontaneous applause.

After delivering as many as 4,600 shots per day in the space formerly known as Sears at Rockaway Townsquare Mall, the megasite closed.

Morris County outpaces the rest of the state for vaccinations in every age group — 69.7 percent of all ages, 80 percent of people 12 or older, 83 percent of adults and 90.2 percent of seniors have received at least one dose, according to available data from the Centers for Disease Control.

“Our job here was to put ourselves out of business as soon as possible,” said Scott DiGiralomo, director of the county's Department of Law and Public Safety, who coordinated the center's operations.

The Morris County COVID-19 Testing facility also closed Friday. The closures represented a turning point in the pandemic. As COVID-19 emerged in New Jersey, tests were difficult to come by.

So were vaccines when they became available. Their scarcity made public-private partnerships the driving factor in ensuring people could get tested, and then vaccinated. (Morris County coordinated with Atlantic Health System to deliver vaccinations at the megasite.)

Now, tests and vaccines are more readily available. Officials continue to urge people to get vaccinated, with Gov. Phil Murphy calling the current situation "a pandemic for the unvaccinated." Read more: 'Breakthrough' COVID-19 Cases, Deaths In NJ: Here's What To Know

The closure of the state's six vaccine megasites — Gov. Phil Murphy announced in June they would soon shut down — signaled New Jersey's shift from massive inoculation operations to local efforts. Find available vaccines here.

New Jersey, including Morris County, has seen an uptick in cases as the delta variant has emerged. The county averaged 11.3 new cases per day from July 7 to 13 before hitting 21.5 new daily cases from July 14 to Tuesday, according to state data.

"The vaccine efficacy data tells us there are almost — these (new cases) are almost exclusively of those who for whatever reason remain unvaccinated," Murphy said. "These unvaccinated individuals are who are feeding the rapid increase in the rate of transmission, which is today at 1.37 meaning that each newly infected person is by themselves infecting more than one other person."

Some Morris County towns lag behind the county average. For instance, in Jefferson Township, only 63 percent of adults have had one dose or more.

But most of the town-by-town efforts to get more people vaccinated will come from the state, according to county government spokesperson Brian T. Murray.

"While we will continue to promote the availability of vaccines and testing, and the county will aid in assisting communities where contracted or invited to assist, the public health system in New Jersey is not set up in a hierarchical fashion that would put the county in a position to dive in town to town where problems may be found," Murray told Patch. "That overarching authority, to some degree, rests with the state Department of Health."

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