At hospitals across New York City, people seeking COVID-19
vaccines abruptly had appointments canceled due to what's being called a sudden
change in supply.
Thousands of others with appointments at state-run sites
were informed their appointments had never been authorized.
A state official says, "An unpublished scheduling link
was shared without authorization on social media…We are currently contacting
everyone who used the unauthorized link to inform them of the situation.”
The cancellations are the latest snag in a rollout plagued
with hiccups.
New York state's vaccine portal warns there are just
300,000 weekly doses for 7 million eligible people; 5 million just became
eligible in the past three days.
In New Jersey, 4.5 million people became eligible for the
vaccine this week despite having nowhere near that many doses available.
The state is also trying to explain why an extra dose of
vaccine in five-dose vials is being thrown away. They say syringes leave
different amounts of waste, and some vials are being tossed with an extra dose.
But doctors had no way of knowing that in advance and,
sometimes, they had no one left to give the surplus doses to. The state is now
belatedly telling them that rather than throw the extra doses away, they should
give them to anyone, even if they're not technically eligible.
In Connecticut, vaccine rollout was also uneven. Many
smaller districts were vaccinating for days before three of the larger ones
managed to open.
Dr. Amna Husain, a News 12 medical contributor, says
despite the flawed rollout, there's still time for the states to get this
right.
“Trying to think outside the box, think on bigger scale,
think on more efficient scale. Those are things I think we now know would be
most helpful,” he says.