Camden County Pulling Out All Stops To Get More Residents Vaccinated After Recording Single-Day COVID-19 Case Record
CAMDEN, N.J. (CBS) -- COVID-19 cases continue to surge and local health officials are pulling out all the stops to get people vaccinated and boosted.
COVID-19 cases in New Jersey are rapidly climbing. The state set a new record Wednesday of nearly 10,000 new cases in a single day.
"It's moving. It's way through the states and it's kind of scary," Camden resident Derrick Sondrini said.
Among the counties, Camden County hit a new record with 325 new cases.
"Which is the highest we have seen since Jan. 15 of this year," Gabrielle Sweeney, an epidemiologist, said, "so it's been steadily increasing over the past couple of weeks."
The top five areas with the highest count in the county are Cherry Hill, Pennsauken, Winslow Township, Gloucester Township and Camden City.
In Camden City, their vaccination rate is now up to 70%, so the county says its high COVID-19 numbers are stemming from unvaccinated people.
In an effort to stop the spread, Rutgers nursing students administered COVID-19 vaccines Wednesday at the Branches at Centerville in the 1700 block of South 9th Street.
"We had a couple people today say they want to get boosted up so they could go out and travel and visit family and friends for the holidays," Aminata Jamiru, a nursing student, said.
The goal is to stop the surge in the new year.
"We really need to stress the importance of getting boosters because, at this point, people's immunity from the first and second doses might be disappearing," Sweeney said.
Those who showed up to the clinic are on board too.
"For me, I work with kids and I want to be safe when I interact with kids," Sondrini said. "We don't want this to go on for so long and do our best to be safe."
In Camden County, the average age of those infected is 34 years old.