BUT MCGRAW DOES NOT EXPECT SULLIVAN TO RECEIVE ANY DOSES IN FIRST WAVE
With Friday's emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, 19,200 doses are expected to be en route this weekend to the Mid-Hudson Region.
However, it's unknown if Sullivan County is included in this first wave of distribution. Garnet Health Center in Harris had six patients hospitalized with Covid-19 as of Friday afternoon.
On Thursday, County Public Health Director Nancy McGraw said: “We don’t expect to be in the first wave. We will be in the second rollout as a County health department.” She added that the priority populations to be vaccinated will be hospital staff and nursing home residents, followed by community groups “that are at high risk.” McGraw made the comments Thursday as part of her report to the County Legislature’s Health & Family Services Committee.
No members of the committee asked her for more information about the vaccine distribution or if there was an approximate date attached to the “second wave” that she referred to. In addition, neither County Manager Josh Potosek or Legislature Chair Rob Doherty have made any related public announcments. But Governor Cuomo said Friday that he expects an additional 346,000 doses of Moderna’s vaccine (if similarly approved by FDA) to arrive the week of December 21.
Cuomo added that workers from CVS and Walgreens, under a federal government arrangement that New York State has opted into, will visit nursing homes around the state to give the injections that reportedly includes The Care Center at Sunset Lake.
McGraw, in a separate video posted this week, announced that the general population of Sullivan can expect to get vaccinated in the early Spring.
She said two weeks ago that she submitted a vaccine distribution plan to the New York State Department of Health but County officials thus far have not made that plan public.