BUFFALO, N.Y. — If you had one of the more than 9,000 appointments cancelled to get a COVID-19 vaccine through one of the Erie County Point of Distribution clinics (PODs) you will be hearing from the county soon about rescheduling.
At the county's weekly COVID-19 briefing, Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein said emails are starting to be sent to those whose appointments were cancelled starting with appointments from January 18. Rescheduled appointments will be at the same time and location as your original appointment.
"As you can imagine we are only receiving 1,700 doses a week for our general population and we have over 9,000 appointments that we had to cancel and we will be trying to reschedule, this is probably going to take all of February and even a little bit of March," Burstein said.
Burstein says this process to reschedule all of the cancelled appointments will take several weeks. She asks that if you get an email and are unable to make it or have already gotten a shot elsewhere to please let them know so they can move on to the next name on the list. She reminds people that appointments cannot be 'given away' to a friend or a family member.
When you arrive at the appointment you will need to show a confirmation ticket — either printed or on your phone. You will also need agency-provided documentation of your job or proof of employment as a member of an eligible group.
The county says 1,700 doses have been set aside for rescheduled appointments and are set to be administered later this week, leaving a little over 7,000 to be rescheduled according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.
The county will schedule more first-dose appointments for Phase 1B essential workers once more supply is available, possibly at the beginning of March.
As of January 30, 18,278 first doses and 1,514 second doses have been given so far through Erie County PODs.
As of January 31, there were 387 patients being treated for COVID-19 in Western New York, 303 of them in Erie County hospitals. Of those, 77 are in the ICU, 48 are on an airway assist and sadly six have succumbed to the virus.
The seven-day positivity rate for the week ending January 30 was 5.1 percent.
