BUFFALO (WBEN) - Erie County officials are growing more frustrated with COVID vaccine supply, or lack thereof, as Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein announced more vaccination appointment cancellations for later in the week.
"Unfortunately, this is going to affect another 1,290 individuals who hade appointments for those clinics," said Burstein at the county's weekly COVID-19 update. "However, I just want to reassure people that everybody who has made an appointment and it was canceled by us, we will be offering spots in future Erie County Health Department vaccine clinics when we do receive more vaccine from the state.
"At the current supply rate, it will probably take us a month to get through everybody who has made an appointment and we had to cancel, but we will get to you," she continued.
To this point, the Erie County Health Department has administered 16,520 first doses and 320 second doses since January 4, but County Executive Mark Poloncarz said they have the ability to do more per day than what the current supply allows.
Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul noted the frustration among officials and state residents, saying it's probably in everybody's best interest to stop booking appointments so far in advance.
"This is an evolving process, and we're trying to manage people's expectations, so the reality is that it's probably better not to be scheduling further out," she said. "When we thought there was going to be plenty of supply, it made sense, but now that we realize a couple weeks into this that the supply is not going to be counted on until more is produced, that having lots of people signed up is just a point of frustration for them."
So, how exactly should Erie County residents go about obtaining a vaccine? Not even Poloncarz is sure at this point.
"That's a good question - I don't know," he began. "We were ordered by the state to schedule out into the future, and we did through the remainder of the month, and then the state cut back on our numbers, so we had to cancel those appointments."
Anyone over the age of 65 has been directed to go to a pharmacy, and the county executive said that as of last week, there were 3,900 doses that went to pharmacies in Erie County.
"I don't know what is the best way to get vaccinated at this point," Poloncarz continued. "I can't give that answer - I have a lot of people ask, 'what's the best way, you must know it,' and I really don't. The county is not scheduling at this point for the future, and we are going to reschedule vaccinations for those that were canceled, and those people will be individually contacted. Once we get through those, then we'll be able to open it up to the general universe, but even then, we've been told that we're limited on who we can (vaccinate).
Poloncarz and Burstein both stressed that the amount of supply the county is allotted is completely out of their hands, as the federal government divvies supply among the states, and the states divvy it up among the various counties.
"It is all out of our hands until we get an actual vaccine dose - then we can put it in somebody's arm," he said. "But until that point where maybe there's direct delivery of vaccine to Erie County from the federal government, which we hope would eventually happen, and we have the storage capability of doing that, it's kind of out of our hands.
"I know people are unhappy, and justifiably so; they're confused, and justifiably so," he continued. "It's a system that's not what we want, and hopefully it will get better in the future."
