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COVID vaccine eligibility expands as concerns over supply linger

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday announced people with certain comorbidities and underlying conditions will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine beginning February 15.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday announced people with certain comorbidities and underlying conditions will be eligible for the COVID vaccine beginning mid-February.

More information on the announcement here

However, even before this announcement, county leaders across Western New York raised concerns about the opening of eligibility outpacing the supply.

On Thursday, Chautauqua County Executive PJ Wendel told 2 on Your Side, "The challenging part is we keep adding people to the list. ... If we keep adding people who are eligible, we're just increasing the demand without any supply. To me, that's not effective." 

Daniel Stapleton, the Niagara County public health director, worries this could be a recipe for disappointment and anxiety.

"It's fine to be able to open it up to more people, but only if you have the vaccine supply to meet that demand, and right now we're nowhere close with that," he said.

In fact, as of Saturday afternoon, Stapleton had just 10 first doses left of the vaccine. He believes Niagara County has been approved for 400 new doses, but that's only a quarter of what he ordered.

The governor said on Friday since 75 percent of hospital workers have been vaccinated, the state will give hospitals one more week at the current allocation to appeal to their last workers who haven't gotten the vaccine yet.

"And then what we're going to do is reallocate the doses that were set aside for the hospital workers and we will then give that allocation to the local health departments to do people with comorbidities," Cuomo said.

He added, "The hospitals will still get enough doses to do who they have to do, and who they've scheduled, and any workers who they can convince to take it."

However, Stapleton questions if that strategy will work. 

"I talk to my hospital partners, and the couple of them that I've talked to recently, they don't have that supply. We're actually giving them vaccine because they don't have vaccine, so I don't see how that's going to happen," Stapleton said.

Health officials say eventually they will be able to vaccinate these people but with such high demand, it will take a while unless there's a significant change in the near future.

In the meantime, they're urging people to be patient and continue to follow public health guidelines to protect themselves and others.

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