Erie County remains orange; state helps nursing homes, threatens hospitals over vaccine delays

Jan. 4—Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz has been lobbying to allow the county to move back to a "yellow zone" classification, which would allow restaurants to reopen for indoor dining, among other things. But an uptick in Covid-19 cases is thwarting that effort.

The county had seen a three-week decline in the number of new coronavirus cases since early December, from 4,295 cases a week down to 3,076. But that changed this past week, when the county saw a 13% increase.

Among other developments Monday:

—Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is placing more pressure on hospitals to vaccinate health care workers quickly or risk state penalties and fines.

—The state is stepping in to assist with nursing home vaccinations because the federal program, which relies on national pharmacy chains to vaccinate residents and staff, has been moving more slowly than expected.

Fewer than half of all nursing homes have completed administering the first dose of the vaccine so far, Cuomo said, but by the end of this week, 85% of residents should have received their first vaccination doses.

—Erie County on Monday opened its first vaccination clinic to assist with the vaccination of health care workers.

No color change

Poloncarz said he had hoped Cuomo might announce on Monday that he was rolling back the orange zone designation for Erie County. But over this past week, the number of weekly confirmed cases grew from 3,076 to 3,470.

"We believe that this is part of a post-holiday season surge," Poloncarz said.

As of the latest data for Saturday, Erie County had a positive test rate of 7%, up from 6.2% the week before. First-ring suburbs continue to show the highest numbers of new daily cases per 100,000 residents.

County hospitalization levels have remained relatively stable so far. Assuming the holiday surge proves to be minor and short-lived, as it was over Thanksgiving, Poloncarz is optimistic about the county's orange zone restrictions being lifted.

"I'm going to continue to advocate that we at least go back to the yellow zone," he said. "I think it's fair, and it is something that is based on the statistics. We're not as bad as we were."

Nursing homes

Though nursing home residents are at highest risk of dying from Covid-19, fewer than half of the nursing homes in the state have completed the first round of vaccinations of their residents.

And Erie County has been given no information on which nursing homes locally have received and administered the vaccine, and which ones haven't.

In his briefing Monday, Cuomo said that 288 of 611 nursing homes have completed the first round of vaccine distribution to residents. But national chains that have contracted with the federal government to provide the vaccines to nursing home residents and staff aren't moving fast enough, he said.

"The federal program has not worked as quickly as we would have liked," Cuomo said. "We're going to step in and make it work."

Nursing homes that can administer the vaccine themselves will be allowed to do that, the governor said.

The state goal is to have all remaining nursing home residents vaccinated with their first doses within the next two weeks.

Poloncarz, however, expressed frustration that he has received no information from either the federal or state governments about the progress of nursing home vaccine distribution locally.

"We do not know what nursing homes have been vaccinated in Erie County, or for that matter the rest of Western New York, despite repeated efforts to get that information," he said. "And it's really sad because we get calls from people saying, 'When is our nursing home going to get vaccinated?' "

Nor has the county received any update on how many people in Erie County overall have received the vaccine, which has been another sore spot.

"Every other county leader in New York State is feeling the same way," he said.

Cuomo said that to date, about 300,000 doses of the vaccine have been administered across the state. About 2.1 million people in the state are eligible to be vaccinated under the first phase of the vaccine rollout.

Hospitals under pressure

Hospitals that are supposed to be distributing vaccines are not all doing a good job of it, Cuomo said. But Erie County Medical Center is doing better than many.

The governor highlighted a Top 10 list and a Bottom 10 list showing what percentage of vaccines have been distributed by hospitals across the state.

Two hospitals in the state have administered 99% of the vaccine doses they've received, while a few have distributed fewer than 20% of their doses, Cuomo said.

ECMC ranked 10th on a list of Top 10 "highest performing" hospitals and hospital systems. No other local hospitals were listed among the highest or lowest performing hospitals.

Statewide, hospitals have used about 46% of the vaccine doses they've been allocated, the governor said.

"I don't want a vaccine in a freezer," Cuomo said. "I want it in somebody's arm."

ECMC has administered 62% of the vaccine dosages it has received, according to a slide shown during Cuomo's presentation in Albany. But Poloncarz said ECMC had used 72% of its doses as of Monday morning and will have distributed the rest by the end of the week.

To get hospitals to distribute vaccine doses more quickly, the state Department of Health has told hospitals that those who haven't used up their existing vaccine inventory by the end of this week can be fined up to $100,000 and may not be eligible to receive further allocations of vaccine, he said.

"We'll use other hospitals who can administer it better," Cuomo said.

Going forward, hospitals must use all the vaccine they receive within a week of receipt, he said.

"This is a management issue of the hospitals," he said. "They have to move the vaccine and they have to move the vaccine faster."

He also warned that if any health provider or entity knowingly allows someone who is not yet eligible to receive the vaccine to receive it and jump the line, "that provider will lose their license, period."

New county vaccination clinic

Monday was the first day Erie County opened a Covid-19 vaccination clinic. By the end of the day Tuesday, the county will have administered the first dose of the Moderna vaccine to 1,500 health care professionals, Poloncarz said. The vaccines were provided through Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center as part of the state distribution plan.

The county expects to receive another 7,500 doses of the vaccine by the end of the week, working through the region's vaccine hub, to administer to other top-tier vaccine recipients.

Other counties, including Onondaga and Monroe counties, began opening vaccine clinics last week, but Poloncarz said Erie County was delayed in getting state approval to host a vaccination clinic until the end of last week. Then staff didn't get physical access to the vaccine until early Sunday evening, he said.

He did not disclose the location of the county clinic because the pop-up clinic is open by appointment only, and all appointments are booked for the existing vaccine doses the county has on hand to administer.

The general public is not expected to have access to the vaccine until late spring or early summer, county leaders said.

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