TRENTON – As part of the transition to routine, commercial access to COVID-19 vaccines, the New Jersey COVID-19 Vaccine Call Center is closing operations on March 28, the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) announced today.
Residents can continue to call the national COVID-19 Vaccine Hotline at 1-800-232-0233, where assistance is available in English, Spanish, and other languages. Deaf and hard of hearing individuals can call TTY 1-888-720-7489. Persons with disabilities can seek COVID-19 vaccination support through the Disability Information and Access Line at 1-888-677-1199. During the transition, calls to the New Jersey COVID-19 Vaccine Call Center will be rerouted to the national COVID-19 Vaccine Hotline.
Over more than three years, the New Jersey COVID-19 Vaccine Call Center has scheduled over 170,000 vaccination appointments, made nearly 40.9 million outreach calls, and sent over 300 million text messages.
“Whether speaking to an agent or providing automated information to answer their questions, the NJ COVID-19 Vaccine Call Center has helped hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans get much-needed information on vaccine eligibility and vaccination locations for themselves and their loved ones, as well as to learn more about other important programs,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Kaitlan Baston. “We thank all of the agents over the years for their tremendous work in helping to inform and direct our residents during this critical time.”
Since the initial rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations in 2021, the Call Center has answered questions on COVID-19 vaccines and assisted residents in finding or making a vaccination appointment.
Its mission expanded to include robocalls and text messages to circulate information about upcoming vaccination events in the recipient’s area, the Docket® app for accessing digital vaccination records, and scheduled appointment reminders. The Call Center supported targeted outreach efforts, such as to senior housing residents, home-delivered meals recipients, homebound residents, and childcare centers. The Call Center also provided outgoing information on the availability of free COVID-19 tools like HEPA filters for schools and COVID-19 testing kits.
Through the end of February 2024, the Call Center fielded over 7.4 million inbound calls. Agents provided assistance in languages including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Creole, French, Bengali and Swahili. The Call Center also partnered with an interpretation company to accommodate callers in additional languages.
The Department continues to encourage that all residents ages 6 months and older be up to date against COVID-19 in the 2023–2024 respiratory virus season. The latest eligibility information is available here: www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html, including the recent recommendation for adults ages 65 years and older to get another updated 2023-2024 dose if it has been at least four months since their most recent dose. COVID-19 vaccinations are offered across the state. In addition to through the national call center, locations can be found at vaccines.gov and covid19.nj.gov/communitycalendar.
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