On Monday, the National Governors Association, which is chaired by Andrew Cuomo, sent a letter to President Joe Biden, asking for better coordination between and more clarity on state and federal COVID-19 vaccination programs.

The bipartisan signators, in addition to Cuomo, all members of the association’s executive committee, are governors of Arkansas, Massachusetts, Maryland, Alabama, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Michigan.

Their letter addresses two issues.

The reporting system used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “has created unnecessary confusion,” the letter says.

It goes on to outline three federal programs for distributing vaccine doses:

— The federal government contracts with private pharmacies for vaccinations in nursing homes and long-term care facilities;

— A program new with the Biden administration delivers vaccine doses directly to pharmacies it selects; and

— In another new program, the government distributes vaccine doses directly to federally qualified health centers.

These three programs — unlike the doses the states get weekly from the federal government, based on population — “are federally administered and beyond the states’ control,” the letter says.

The governors urge the CDC to distinguish among these separate efforts “to avoid confusion and provide a clear understanding to the American people.”

Second, the governors write that federal decisions to use pharmacies and federally qualified health centers should be coordinated with state governments.

“We understand the capacity of the individual entities and we know the range of the individual entities throughput and their inventory …,” the governors write. “Following the performance data on these entities is essential.”

The governors also assert, “If the federal government distributes independently of the states to these same entities without state coordination and consultation, redundancy and inefficiency may very well follow.

At his press conference on Monday, Cuomo said, “We need better coordination between the federal government and the state government so we know what pharmacies they’re sending to, we don’t send to the same ones. Local government doesn’t send to the same pharmacies because some pharmacies do a better job than others.”

Cuomo also speculated that, if the federal government increases distribution of doses to states as planned, by May or June, “You should see the situation flip where all those distribution points will make it easier for the consumer.”

In its ninth week of receiving vaccine doses, New York has been given 3.4 million doses, Cuomo’s office reported in a Monday release.

Statewide, 85 percent of this week’s doses have been administered.

The Capital  Region has administered 175,318 of the 214,270 doses it has been given this week, which is 82 percent.