BUFFALO, N.Y. — As of Tuesday, 58-percent of all eligible Erie County residents now have at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. And 41-percent of everyone 16 and up now has both doses.
But to reach more people, the county is planning more pop-up clinics. These new pop-up locations are expected to include parks now that it's warmer out - places where you'd be going anyways so it's more convenient.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said they could do one in the parking lot at Chestnut Ridge, but that it makes more sense to start scheduling those when the county starts getting the Johnson and Johnson vaccine again. Next week, it has Moderna and Pfizer shots coming.
There's also a pop-up being planned in southern Erie County, although it hasn't been announced yet.
"We're going to be moving them around," Poloncarz said. "We're going to have specialized locations where we will only have two vaccinators instead of seven or eight, so we can do more in a day at the smaller locations because we realize the only way we're going to be able to hit everybody that we need to is that if we bring the vaccine also to them."
The county executive says 99-percent of people are coming back to get their second dose in Erie County.
For the homebound population, the county is getting doses to them with some J & J shots they still have left.
Also Tuesday, we got an update on the Erie County Fair.
With Governor Andrew Cuomo announcing the State Fair will be happening this year, with restrictions in place, the Erie County Fair is still up in the air.
We still don't know what the Erie County Fair will look like this year if it happens in August. It depends on what the county and state restrictions are, what that guidance is, and if it makes sense financially for the fair to happen. As of right now, the county is still waiting on a plan of operations from the people who run the fair. The county requests large events turn in plans like that ahead of time.
"Last I saw, as of last week, they had not. We would certainly entertain and discuss this with the Erie County Fairgrounds. We have a good relationship with them," Poloncarz said. "We provide a lot of services to the Erie County Fairgrounds, as well, so I just look forward to sitting down with the folks from the fair, with our Department of Health, and going through their plan of how to do it."
The state would also be involved because it is setting capacity limits. The county executive says he's hopeful the fair will happen this year, especially since the State Fair is happening.
And the governor announced Tuesday that state-run mass vaccination clinics will allow anyone 16 and up to walk-in without an appointment starting Thursday.
At his weekly COVID-19 press briefing, the Erie County Executive was asked if that would soon be the case at county-run clinics. He says that won't be the case because the state isn't giving the county enough Pfizer doses to be able to vaccinate 16 and 17-year-olds.
He also said that for pop-up clinics, there will be a set number of shots available.
"I think people understand that there's a very limited amount of individuals who are walking-in," Poloncarz said. "I'm glad the governor's doing that in the grand scheme of things. I don't think it's going to affect anything that we're doing here, and I would not want to say everyone can walk-in to every site because if we don't have Pfizer at that site, we're not gonna be able to do 16 to 17-year-olds."
There are several pop-up clinics scheduled in the next week.