AURELIUS â Bridget Kennedy wasn t thinking of herself when she received the second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday.Â
For Kennedy, an Auburn resident who is a teacher with the Port Byron Central School District, getting vaccinated was more about the safety of those at home. I got it to protect my kids, she said. Her children are too young to get the vaccine.Â
The Citizen interviewed Kennedy and others at a clinic held by the Cayuga County Health Department at Fingerlakes Mall in Aurelius. Hundreds of residents, many of whom received their first dose of the vaccine at Port Byron, were there to get their second dose. (The Moderna vaccine, like the Pfizer vaccine, requires two doses. Johnson & Johnson has a single-dose vaccination.)Â
Gallery: Cayuga County Health Department s vaccine clinic finds a home at the Fingerlakes Mall
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COVID-19 vaccine assembly line : Cayuga County s clinics find home at Fingerlakes Mall
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Cayuga County Health Department: Get vaccine if you can, where you can
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What started with vaccination clinics at one site in Cayuga County has grown into a larger operation with mobile clinics and a new location at Fingerlakes Mall to inoculate hundreds of residents in a day.Â
The Cayuga County Health Department is leading the push. After receiving its first shipment of doses in January and a weekly allotment that has ranged from 200 to 500 doses, the department has administered 7,884 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. That s nearly half of the total number of residents (16,806) that have received at least one dose. So far, 8,365 county residents have been fully vaccinated.Â
Early on, the health department held daily clinics at Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES. These clinics were open to eligible residents who could sign up for an appointment. But because of shifting state guidance, the department had to change course. The state Department of Health directed county health departments to focus on vaccinating eligible workers instead of residents age 65 a