It is Difficult to Get the Covid-19 Vaccine on Long Island
Getting a Covid-19 vaccine appointment is a difficult process, as millions of people are competing for just thousands of COVID-19 daily doses. Some state-run vaccination sites, among them Jones Beach, open Thursday at 8 a.m., but Long Island residents report the sign-up system is always crashing. Hopefully the problem will be fixed soon, and more doses will be available to Long Islanders.A mom and teacher, Donna Dorsam, had difficulty navigating through the process of finding a site that had any available appointments. She finally got one for Sunday, January 24 at Gohealth Northwell Health Urgent Care in Huntington, only to have it canceled. “I had to log in and out of various sites about 30 times before some open appointments opened up. I was excited, only to find out a week later they canceled it,” she said.
Mark Winairski of Great Neck is among the frustrated. The New York State vaccine appointment phone line is perpetually busy. Its website to book appointments is maddening. Mark told CBS News, “The process is really elder unfriendly. It’s elder hostile, really, and I can’t believe that the state tested any of this stuff.”
“Kicked off the site at every turn. Kept hitting refresh, got kicked off, got back on the site,” vaccine website user Rhonda Vitoulis added. Frustrations boiled over in an overwhelmed system that’s about to get busier. Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday announced that Centers for Disease Control guidance allowing millions more to get inoculated will now make people 65 and over and immunocompromised eligible.
“At the end of the day, you only have 300,000 dosages for a population of 7 million. We need patience at an impatient time in history,” Cuomo said at a meeting, transcribed by the NYS website. The 300,000 doses allocated by the federal government per week leave counties like Nassau with only around 1,000 per day and unable to book appointments more than one day in advance. “As soon as we have vaccine or even confirmation of vaccine, we are making those appointments available. People should check back every so often,” Nassau County Health Commissioner Dr. Larry Eisenstein said. Dr. Anthony Boutin, chief medical officer of Nassau University Medical Center, was able to vaccinate 4,500 staff members, but now he tells News 12, “We are out of vaccine. The supply chain starts with the federal government. As soon as we get our allocations, we will be ready to vaccinate the rest of the community.”
As far as kids go, the current vaccines can be given to kids age 16 and up. When asked 18 year old Katie Davis if she would get the vaccine when it is her turn, she commented, “Yes I sure will. I want to do my part to help us put closure to this pandemic.” High school student Brooke Buda also added, “My mom works at Northwell Health, and my dad is a chiropractor. They both got the vaccine already, but they too had a tough time scheduling their appointments.” Camryn Szukoli, a student at Elwood Middle School claimed, “If I was old enough I would get the vaccine. I see too many kids quarantined and missing school.”