County vaccine plans shelved
Cuomo retains control over program; officials in region don’t know why
County officials who have for years been planning for a mass vaccination said they are seeing that training and preparation — much of it funded by millions of dollars in federal grants — pushed aside as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration has retained control of the state’s coronavirus vaccination program, including having hospitals rather than local health departments administer the doses.
Interviews with multiple county officials over the past week confirm that many are unclear why the governor’s administration has not activated the county-by-county system, a plan that included recent practice sessions in which members of the public received regular flu vaccines at drive-through sites.
In Albany County, officials have privately said they could vaccinate the population of the southern half of the county in a few days if they were given the coronavirus vaccines and allowed to mobilize their plan.
Publicly, county officials were more reserved in their comments.
“Albany County has developed and submitted our mass vaccination and distribution strategy to the state; however, we are still waiting to hear back from them on what the final plan will be,” Cameron Sagan, a spokesman for the county, said in a statement last week.
Rensselaer County Executive Steve Mclaughlin, a former assemblyman and political firebrand who is a frequent critic of Cuomo’s, was more direct.
The state already has an IT (information technology) vendor. ... It would not make any sense to have 62 different scheduling systems and 62 different reporting systems. There has to be a real statewide coordination here, which is what we’re doing. ... It’s just a completely different level of coordination and logistics than a lot of people were expecting ... and that is why were are doing the planning the way we are, which is on a regional level.”
Gareth Rhodes, a member of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s coronavirus task force
“We are not sure why the change was made from providing the vaccines to the counties to the regional center model,” Mclaughlin said last week. “Rensselaer County has been preparing for months for the distribution of vaccines and we are not sure how much this change will affect us.
“There are a lot of unknowns about how and when the vaccine will be distributed to larger segments of the population,” Mclaughlin added. “There needs to be clear information so there is not confusion or unnecessary stress caused on the public or our health care providers.”
Gareth Rhodes, a member of Cuomo’s coronavirus task force, said the county health departments and their pre-designated “point-of-distribution sites” for vaccinations are still integral to the governor’s plan, which is being done on a regional rather than county-bycounty basis. As part of that process, the state is gathering details from counties about their vaccination plans and capabilities.
“The state then refines and approves and we implement the regional plan, of which every single health department plays a large role,” Rhodes said. “It’s not like we’re sitting on 50 million vaccine doses. ... We’re getting a very small number every week, and criteria for who is eligible is obviously very narrow at this point.”
Rhodes, who is helping lead the administration’s vaccination strategy, said the planning is complicated because every person needs to receive two doses of the same vaccine — roughly three weeks apart — and the vaccine being distributed by Pfizer must be kept in deep-freeze storage containers until it’s thawed for use.
Rhodes took issue with the idea that the county plans were being ignored. “We’ve been working very closely with them, have had a number of calls with them,” he said. “I think our goals are all the same; we want to get this thing done as quickly as possible and in the most efficient way as possible.”
Still, the tensions between some county officials and the state were palpable this week.
“Public health departments should be distributing the #COVID -19 vaccine, not hospitals. It has always been their role,” Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente Jr. said in a tweet directed to the Times Union. “#OneidaCounty has the plan, the training and the experience and stands ready to execute.”
Rhodes said the pointsof-distribution sites — such as churches, fire departments and senior centers — will still be used, but he stopped short of saying that counties would be called on to administer vaccinations or to use their own computer systems to track who has received their shots.
“The state already has an IT (information technology) vendor. ... It would not make any sense to have 62 different scheduling systems and 62 different reporting systems,” he said. “There has to be a real statewide coordination here, which is what we’re doing. ... It’s just a completely different level of coordination and logistics than a lot of people were expecting ... and that is why were are doing the planning the way we are, which is on a regional level.”
Numerous firefighters and emergency service responders were vaccinated Wednesday afternoon at a warehouse in Albany that is controlled by Albany Medical Center, which is one of the hospitals authorized to administer the vaccine. The Times Union is not disclosing the location because county officials contend the vaccination sites should not be publicly disclosed for security purposes.
“There are a number of viable options for vaccination sites under consideration right now, but they shouldn’t be disclosed at this time for security purposes,” Sagan said when asked to identify Albany County’s vaccination sites. “Again, choosing these sites is a decision that will ultimately be made by the state in conjunction with the Regional Vaccination Hub stakeholders.”
During a news conference on Wednesday, Albany County Executive Dan Mccoy acknowledged the Cuomo administration “threw us for a loop when it went to Albany Med and it took it out of of the control of the (county) health department, but it’s a good thing and it’s a different approach.”
Mccoy also noted that Albany Medical Center had “never done this” and that the county — and other counties across the state — had for years been practicing and planning for mass vaccinations under a program involving the state and the federal government.
“We do it every year,” Mccoy said, noting the Times Union Center in Albany is among the locations where mass vaccinations could be administered. That location also was used a decade ago when people received vaccinations for the H1N1 virus.
Albany County’s plan indicates that more than 38,000 people could be vaccinated in a 10-day period at the Times Union Center. That site would be equipped with 46 vaccinators, each capable of administering the vaccine to six people per hour.
The vaccination centers — which in many counties are set up at local health departments, schools, firehouses, churches and college campuses — also have detailed plans for staffing, including the number of volunteers who would be involved with processing, screening, medical treatment and security.
The long-established network of county-level response teams have point-of-distribution sites throughout their respective municipalities — from drive-through fire departments to high schools and concert venues. The county-level plans have not been highlighted by Cuomo as he has rolled out the state’s plan while also leveling heavy criticism at the White House’s COVID -19 vaccination program, especially its ability to deliver vaccinations to communities of color.
White House officials have countered that they will deliver the vaccines to pharmacies, as well as to any other distribution sites that a state tells them to, including hospitals and long-term care facilities.
On Oct. 30, after attending his first governorsonly federal coronavirus task force briefing in nearly five months, Cuomo declared the federal vaccination plan was “deeply flawed.” He focused that criticism on the plan’s reliance on a “publicprivate” partnership in which pharmacies would play a key role in helping administer the COVID -19 vaccines.
“That is a very limited distribution mechanism,” Cuomo said. “They do not provide for a state to organize vaccination with state personnel on any scale.”
Cuomo added that “it could take one year to vaccinate the population using only a private sector network.”
Again, county officials interviewed for this story have said that if their mass vaccination plans were activated, and if they receive enough doses, they could vaccinate the residents of their counties in a much shorter time frame.