NY Must Fix Vaccine Delivery System: Rockland State Lawmakers

The writers are Senator Elijah Reichlin-Melnick, Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski, and Assemblyman Mike Lawler.

We are deeply concerned with the current distribution process for delivering the COVID vaccine. A lack of transparency and clear guidance has created unnecessary panic and frustration for our constituents.

The federal government’s failure to supply New York State with sufficient vaccine doses to cover essential workers and seniors has created this problem, but while we wait for more doses to arrive, the process for scheduling appointments must be standardized and made much more transparent. It is unacceptable that seniors must spend hours of their day calling around to different locations - only to hear busy signals, receive conflicting information, or to hear that all appointments are booked and no more appointments are being accepted.

Rockland County has had the most COVID cases per capita of any county in the state, and has one of the highest infection rates. When distributing vaccines, we believe New York should prioritize counties with high infection rates. We call on the Department of Health to create a publicly-run vaccination center in Rockland County, similar to the drive-through testing center at the Anthony Wayne Recreation Area. This center could serve as the single point-of-contact to coordinate with the county and local private partners such as pharmacies and hospitals.

Finally, it is clear the continued expansion of eligibility for New Yorkers without an expansion of infrastructure to support the new requests has overwhelmed the system.

Urgent action is needed. Additional staff should be made available to handle the vaccine hotlines, so that anyone who calls to schedule an appointment can get an appointment scheduled for some point in the future.