BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz asked for patience, in a tweet, with hundreds of thousands of county residents now eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
In New York State, individuals in groups 1A and 1B, which includes individuals 65 or older as of Tuesday, are now eligible to register to receive the vaccine. Poloncarz said more than 300,000 Erie County residents are included in those groups.
“Right now, we have 1,000 doses on hand,” the county executive said during a coronavirus press briefing Tuesday afternoon. “So it’s going to take a long time.”
Later in the day, Poloncarz tweeted the county had received an additional shipment of doses that afternoon, and had enough doses to get through Saturday’s appointments. To date, the county has distributed 6,907 doses of the vaccine, according to county officials.
Our @ECDOH has received 1,200 transferred doses from @RoswellPark and the expected 4,200 doses from @HealthNYGov. Thank you to both. These are enough doses to get us through all appointments scheduled at our point of distribution clinics for the remainder of this week. pic.twitter.com/sCGECKArjH
— Mark Poloncarz (@markpoloncarz) January 12, 2021
Erie County is not making vaccination appointments over the phone.
Chris Horvatits is an award-winning anchor and reporter who has been part of the News 4 team since 2017. See more of his work here.
