Gov. Phil Murphy on Thursday toured the COVID-19 clinic at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick.

Health care workers at the hospital received their dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine.

Physician assistant Anthony Patten Jr. was the first at the hospital to get the vaccine. He received his first dose earlier this week.

"I would be lying if I didn't say I had a little bit of reservations. But because I've been working in health care for so long - about 17 years - I knew I was going to get it. There was no question about that. Overall, the experience was smooth and easy. Been no problems since,” he said.

Patten said that there was also an opportunity to get information about the vaccine before getting the shot.

New Jersey received about 76,000 doses of the vaccine to be given to health care workers.

State health officials on Thursday released the latest COVID-19 data, which showed that there were fewer new positive cases than recent averages. There were 4,319 new positive cases reported on Thursday and 77 additional deaths.

The rate of transmission was down to 1.05.