As millions more doses of now three anti-COVID vaccines start flooding out across the country, there will be more and more places to put your arm out for a shot locally.
UPDATE MARCH 3, 10 a.m.: Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz tweeted that "all appointments at the NYS-FEMA site at the Delavan-Grider Community Center have been taken. That means in the last 24 hours more than 14,000 appointment slots were filled."
This week, Erie County will have nearly 7,300 shots to start putting in arms, up by thousands from recent weeks. These shots are expected to include the first few hundred Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses, as New York State begins taking appointments for the one-dose vaccine.
On Wednesday, March 3, FEMA will start mass vaccinating people at Buffalo's Delavan Grider Community Center. Initially, the shots could go into the arms of people from 10 impoverished zip codes that have lost many to the virus. At 8 a.m. Wednesday, residents from the entire county can register for a shot there.
County Executive Mark Poloncarz said Tuesday he was surprised shots were still available there.
"Thousands of individuals have signed up and they come from these zip codes. What we’re a little surprised to see is not more have, and I’ve been talking to our partners in the community about this," he said. "I’ve been reaching out to others and trying to spread the message that if your loved one doesn’t have social media, you can help them, still, by calling the phone number and scheduling an appointment."
That phone number is 1-833-NYS4VAX (1-833-697-4829).
East Side activist groups have been pounding the pavement and wearing out phones in the last few days to make sure people from the initial zip codes were first in line for shots. The county executive said about 650 appointments at Delavan Grider for later this month were taken just Tuesday.
Erie County is also starting to offer new services, like vaccinating those confined to their residences. Poloncarz said that includes elderly and frail nuns in convents, where there have been many deaths.
"We know that there is the issue with the nuns. We will be vaccinating the nuns that have been, unfortunately, unable to get it. They qualify based on age and they are homebound," Poloncarz said. "And we will also be vaccinating a senior complex that is homebound. We are trying to get more information on those that are truly homebound, not just, 'I don’t want to leave my house to get the vaccine,' but those who can’t leave their house."
Those homebound people will receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
More than 3 million people have received a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine in New York, according to the state, which is now administering more than 100,000 shots per day. According to data from the Cuomo administration Friday, 79.2% of those vaccinated are white, 8.7% are Black, 10.5% are Asian and 1.6% are defined as "Other."
