BUFFALO, N.Y. — To be very clear at this point, there is no real new eligibility for the COVID-19 vaccine here in Erie County because there is still a major backlog from the previously scheduled vaccination clinics for people in the 1-B category from January. That according to Erie County officials who remind us that those clinics had to be cancelled back then because vaccines were not available. So now that some supply is available emails are going out to get those people with previous appointments back in the system.
"We're only receiving 1,700 doses a week for our general population and we have over 9,000 vaccine appointments that we had to cancel and we're trying to reschedule," said Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein. "This is probably gonna take all of February and maybe even a little longer."
Also they must make sure that people get their second round of doses. Clinics have been set up for them as well according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz who says, "They are different locations. They are not the same locations. So we know the individuals who are coming to the second dose clinic are there for a second dose. If they have no proof of the first dose, they're not on our list and they're not gonna get vaccinated."
Earlier in the day Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that local health departments like Erie County could now have flexibility to start vaccinating in group 1-B other deemed essential workers like those in restaurants or taxi or Uber drivers. Poloncarz addressed this topic saying, "While the governor may announce that yes you can go and try to get your first dose of vaccine if you qualify as part of this sub - group, it's difficult for me to sit here and tell those people that you're gonna be able to get a vaccine next week because that's just not gonna happen - it is not gonna happen at least in Erie County."
So once again there is a bit of a disconnect between Albany and Erie County when it comes to vaccine distribution.
There is some encouraging news in that 75,000 Erie County residents have been given their first vaccination dose as of this week. But again there's a realization with Albany policies according to Poloncarz.
"It's a system that is out of our hands is the best way to describe it," Poloncarz said. "Because we are at the mercy of the amount of supply that the state gets from the federal government and then how the state distributes it out to local government. As I've said all along we could do more if we had more doses. We just don't have them."
He also restated what WGRZ had reported on in a story last week. As the Albany Times Union reported in December, there was some criticism from Capital Region county officials in December after Governor Cuomo and his advisers apparently decided the state could run the vaccine distribution program instead of the county health departments. That was even though the state had required counties to plan and operate previous vaccination programs because of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009-2010. Poloncarz says Erie County has handled past vaccination clinics successfully and could have done so again with this COVID pandemic.
