BUFFALO, N.Y. — Wednesday marked the first day for a new COVID-19 vaccine clinic at KeyBank Center.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said many of the individuals with appointments there had been on a waitlist since late December or early January.
He told 2 On Your Side, "We're going to do about 600 a day, but we believe after we've cleaned out all the kinks, we'll do more than 1,000 per day here."
However, locally there are still concerns over the supply not yet meeting the demand.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on a call with reporters Tuesday that in the last week of March, then into April, New York's vaccine allocation from the federal government should start to increase "dramatically."
"That's why we will be increasing our production capacity, our distribution capacity," Cuomo said.
Added Poloncarz: "We've always heard that more doses were coming and in the last couple weeks more doses have come, compared to a month ago. What we really need is the numbers that they said we were going to get. Not 6,000 or 7,000 doses a week, 15,000 doses a week, so we'd really like to be double what we're going to be able to do this week."
Allegany County Public Health Director Tyler Shaw told 2 on Your Side while they're not expecting a drastic increase in vaccine supply, they would welcome it.
"Our current mass vaccination sites are being utilized and we can accommodate an influx of vaccine at this time and patiently await such an allocation," he said.
On a national level, President Joe Biden announced the United States plans to purchase another 100 million Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine doses.
"A lot can happen. A lot can change and we need to be prepared," President Biden said.
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The president also reiterated that the United States is on track to have enough vaccine supply for every American adult by the end of May.
Local leaders are optimistic that will end up being the case.
"It is now March 10. We're hoping that we'll be in a much better position so that those who want it, can just walk in and get doses sometime in April. We're not there yet," Poloncarz said.