BUFFALO, N.Y. — 2 On Your Side wanted to find out just how many people have already gotten their first and second doses of the COVID-19 vaccine here in Western New York.
But getting those numbers is not straightforward.
The state is in charge of distributing the vaccine once the federal government gets the doses to New York. So, the New York State Department of Health is where we need to go for answers.
If you go online and check out the state's vaccine tracker, you can see how many doses have been administered in each region.
The numbers are not broken down by county.
First and second dose data is available for the state, but it's combined for regions, so you can't tell how many Western New Yorkers have gotten both doses so far. The information is also not broken down by demographics like age, zip code, occupation, or what phase the person who got vaccinated is in. That's all information the state should have from people who get the shot.
These numbers also do not include vaccines distributed by the federal government as part of its long term care facility program.
The CDC's vaccine tracker shows the number of people who have gotten their first dose and second dose in each state. The numbers don't match up with what the state is reporting and are not broken down by county or region.
Wanting more information, 2 On Your Side contacted the New York State Department of Health several times over the past week.
We asked the state why the numbers do not match up and we were told, "The CDC number on its website is a global allocation number to New York that is not necessarily what has been delivered to New York so far. It also includes the long-term care facility programs, which were federally run through the pharmacies."
2 On Your Side specifically asked the NYSDOH last week how many doses Erie County is getting each week, and while the state answered other questions we had, it did not answer this one.
Two of our New York State Senators agree the vaccine rollout is not going smoothly.
"The fact that we had a Phase 1A that was only partially complete, and then they created the Phase 1B, also led to a flood of requests on our local providers, so I'm afraid that New York State has in many ways pushed this through too rapidly without having a proper system or structure in place," said NYS Senator Edward Rath.
"The Department of Health needs to continue to be responsive to the people of New York who are saying this system isn't working. You got to keep endeavoring to make it better, and that's what we expect out of the Department of Health. We expect them to make a better system," said NYS Senator Sean Ryan.
2 On Your Side will keep pushing the state for answers about the vaccine, and if we find out exact numbers, we will update you.