BurlCo Health Department offering COVID-19 booster shots

More than 270,000 residents in Burlington County have become fully vaccinated.

Special to The Sun: Burlington County Health Department nurses administer the COVID vaccine earlier this year at a clinic at the John F. Kennedy Center in Willingboro. Last week, the county health department began administering booster shots to eligible residents at all regular clinics.

The Burlington County Health Department has started administering Pfizer vaccine boosters to eligible residents at the County’s regular vaccine clinics.

The Pfizer booster shots are available for people who had their second dose of Pfizer six months ago and meet certain conditions or criteria that could make them more vulnerable to COVID-19. These include:

- Advertisement -

People 65 and older and those who reside in long-term care settings and people 18 to 64 who have underlying medical conditions, such as cancer, chronic kidney disease, chronic lung disease, diabetes, heart conditions, dementia or other neurological conditions, HIV infection, liver disease, overweight or obesity, sickle cell disease, organ or blood stem cell transplants and stroke or cerebrovascular disease patients.

Pregnant women over 18 are also eligible along with current and former smokers and those with substance use disorders.

People 18 and over are also eligible for the Pfizer booster if they work in a profession or location that puts them at increased risk for COVID-19 exposure and transmission.

At this time, residents who received the Moderna vaccine are not yet eligible for booster shots, save for those with one of six specified immune compromising conditions. Johnson & Johnson vaccine recipients are also not currently eligible for boosters.

Residents seeking boosters should bring proof of vaccination, such as their vaccine card, immunization record or their record on the Docket app.

To date, more than 270,000 Burlington County residents have become fully vaccinated from either of the three vaccines.

“The vaccines offer strong protection against COVID-19 and its different variants, including the Delta variant, and we’re pleased that so many of our residents have rolled up their sleeves and received their shots,” said Dr. Herb Conaway, director of the Burlington County Health Department. “Now we’re entering a new phase in our response and are administering boosters to those who are eligible for them to ensure they have the greatest protection possible.”

The Burlington County Health Department runs clinics four days a week at fixed clinic sites. Simply walk-in, no appointments are necessary. The clinics run on the following schedule:

  • Mondays, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Burlington County Emergency Services Training Center, 53 Academy Drive, Westampton (drive-thru clinic);
  • Tuesdays, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Palmyra Community Center, 30 West Broad, Palmyra;
  • Wednesdays, from noon to 4 p.m. at the Weimann Building, 400 Delanco Road, Edgewater Park;
  • Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Bordentown Township Senior Center, 3 Municipal Drive, Bordentown.

 In addition to those clinics, the Health Department is offering COVID-19 vaccine and boosters, along with flu shots, at select weekly flu clinics in the county. A schedule of those upcoming flu clinics is available online here.

Burlington County Commissioner Deputy Director Dan O’Connell, who is the Board liaison to the Health Department, said the fast rollout of boosters was another example of the Health Department’s outstanding work throughout the pandemic.

“From testing, contact-tracing, administering vaccines and assisting our schools and long-term care facilities with their COVID-19 plans and protocols, our Health Department has covered every inch of our county and risen to every challenge this pandemic has presented and then some. And we continue to depend on them,” O’Connell said. “On behalf of our entire Board, I want to thank all our health Department heroes for the work they do every day.”

RELATED ARTICLES
- Advertisment -

Latest