Building the system to vaccinate our region Cayuga Medical Center Ten months after confirming the region’s first COVID-19 infection in Ithaca, Cayuga Health and health departments in Tompkins, Cortland and Schuyler counties launched a plan to vaccinate thousands of residents from the virus with vaccines approved in mid-December. The effort is among the largest public health initiatives ever undertaken in our region. Cayuga Health and the county health departments had just a few weeks to plan and roll out the program that will run for months in 2021. The task ahead Cayuga Health, Tompkins County Health Department and others in our region face the complex task of vaccinating thousands of residents in just a few months to contain the pandemic. Several key numbers show the vaccination program’s ambitious scope. In Tompkins County, Cortland and Schuyler counties, about 280,000 doses are needed to vaccinate residents in the groups that were initially eligible for the two-dose vaccine. The outlook for the mass vaccination effort has improved since Feb. 1 when the three counties had received only 5% of those doses. A growing supply of supply of the two-shot Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, the one-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine and broader eligibility will allow all New Yorkers aged 16+ to get COVID-19 immunizations starting April 6.