Nursing Students, Staff Help Trenton Fight Vaccine Crisis

Trenton health officials—in desperate need of assistance administering vaccines after weather delayed their shipment to New Jersey last week—turned to Thomas Edison State University’s W. Cary Edwards School of Nursing staff and students for help.

The students proved to be up to the task, said Yvette Graffie-Cooper, the public health officer for the city of Trenton.

“It was a communal effort, to be sure, and a lot of scrambling in the 48 hours leading up, but the system ran flawlessly once it fell into place,” she said. “The vaccine, which had been in transit to the Trenton Fire Department’s Perry Street location, was stalled in Kentucky during the winter storm, but we managed to receive the 400 doses needed from St. Francis Medical Center an hour and a half before the first recipients began lining up for their doses on Wednesday.”