2:09
County data shows that a lower proportion of eligible Black and Latinx community members have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
They were able to vaccinate public housing residents, new Americans, Centro staff and homeless shelter employees. McMahon said without these clinics, the vaccine equity numbers would be worse.
“We are underperforming in the Latino community. And we still do have some work to do in the African-American community as well. If we did not do those pop up sites last week and this week, these numbers would be very bad. It shows that we are going to need to be intentional getting into neighborhoods moving forward,” said McMahon.
1:46
Congressmember John Katko says some decentralization within vaccine distribution could help get shots into arms faster.
Supply greatly lags behind demand in New York. Onondaga County’s vaccine slots each week are typically completely booked within minutes, with thousands of eligible residents left without a desired appointment. Katko says counties need to have more control.
“Some weeks you get a decent amount and the next week you don’t get any, said Katko. And that’s very hard for them to get into a systematic distribution of vaccine. So I think some decentralization would help a lot and let the counties do what they do best. And that is figure out where the vaccine should go.”
Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon says things are good regarding COVID 19. McMahon announced only 74 new cases, 1,566 active cases. He said118 people are in the hospital, which's down from yesterday. The bad news was, 4 more people died in the county.