More COVID-19 vaccine is making its way to central and northern New York this week. Onondaga County alone is in line to receive nearly 7,000 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, the most ever in one week. This latest allocation is about three times what the county has been getting in recent weeks.
"There’s a lot of pharmacies getting supply, and then the state site that we help staff at the fairgrounds has a lot of supply, so there’s going to be a lot of people vaccinated this week,” said County Executive Ryan McMahon Monday.
McMahon said they’ll use the supply to close out education staff this week and next, as well as micro-targeting seniors and other hard to reach populations. He expects about 13,000 county residents to get a shot this week, between those receiving their first and second doses.
McMahon doesn’t know if the county will get the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine that was just approved for distribution. But he said when it comes, it will help with some specific populations.
“That would be a very good tool to go to our homeless population, to go to homebound seniors,” he said. “That one shot is what you want to use for population that you don’t know if you’re getting heavy participation with a second shot."
McMahon also says restaurant and hotel employees may be able to receive vaccinations from the county with this increased supply. All in all, McMahon expects 100,000 Onondaga county residents to have received a vaccination by the end of this week.
