ALBANY COUNTY — While continuing its mass COVID-19 vaccination clinic in Albany, the county is also holding smaller pop-up clinics in underserved areas.

One of them popped up at Knox Town Hall on Friday, where staff from Mohawk Ambulance administered 180 first doses of Moderna.

James and Diane Bunkoff were two of those to be vaccinated in Knox. They were pleased with the results but confused leading up to getting their shots.

The Bunkoffs live in New Scotland. They are both 75 and each has multiple underlying health conditions. They pre-registered through the county’s website. Mrs. Bunkoff thought that filling out the form was “very easy,” she told The Enterprise..

Multiple providers are pulling from that registry, such as the state and federal vaccination clinic being run from the Washington Avenue Armory, according to Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy.

On Friday, McCoy said that over 30,000 people have pre-registered through the county’s site, 21,000 of them from Albany County and 11,000 from the city of Albany.

“It was overwhelming working the kinks out ….” said McCoy. “It shouldn’t be the Hunger Games and it shouldn’t be stressful for anyone who wants to get a shot.”

James Bunkoff got a call on Thursday morning, telling him he could get vaccinated on Friday at Knox Town Hall. Thursday evening, Diane Bunkoff got a similar call.

Mrs. Bunkoff called the town hall to confirm but got only a recorded message, saying it was closed because of the pandemic, she said.

She then called the New Scotland Town Hall because she lives in town and was told they didn’t know anything about it and suggested calling the county sheriff’s office — again, no one knew, she said.

Mrs. Bunkoff went on to call Westerlo Town Hall, the state hotline for COVID-19, and Albany County — all to no avail, she said.

“We started to think: Is this true or some kind of a hoax?” she said. “In the Hilltowns, everybody watches out for everybody and knows everything — but no one knew.”

Once the Bunkoffs arrived at town hall at their appointed time, they were pleased. “I was really happy how it turned out,” said Mrs. Bunkoff, describing the process as “very efficient.”

Mary Rozak, McCoy’s spokeswoman, told The Enterprise on Friday evening that, when people pre-register through the county’s website, they can state a preference to be called or emailed once appointments open up.

“People are notified by an automated system because they pre-registered,” she said. “It will tell them what they need to do … It continues doing it for every two hours until it is filled,” she said.

There has not been a situation where slots were left empty, she said. “Nothing goes to waste,” Rozak said of the vaccine.

“I just hope they do more for the Hilltown people,” said Mrs. Bunkoff, whose late mother had lived in Westerlo. “They don’t like to come down into the city. They prefer to stay on the Hill. They can’t make it through the traffic to the Times Union Center or the armory. They don’t know where they’re going.”

She found the 15-minute drive from her New Scotland home to Knox was easy. But Mrs. Bunkoff had not wanted to sign up at the large state clinic held on the uptown University at Albany campus. “I once got lost for an hour in there. All the buildings look the same,” she said. “I can’t get out of their maze.”

Mrs. Bunkoff concluded of the journey she and her husband have taken, surviving their medical ailments in the midst of the pandemic and now looking forward to their second shots on April 2 at Knox Town Hall: “God has watched over us.”

Equity

Mohawk Ambulance also administered 70 doses from the county at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Albany. McCoy said that was arranged through the county legislature’s Black Caucus and the recipients were African Americans.

He also said he visited the armory site, which for its first week is slated to vaccinate residents of specific ZIP codes that are underserved.

“Unfortunately, we saw like three African Americans out of hundreds that were there so it seems these smaller PODs work better in the community,” said McCoy at his press briefing on Friday morning.

Another 100 doses are going to the North Albany American Legion Post on Sunday for people 65 and older. And 400 doses are going to the Watervliet Senior Center for Watervliet, Green Island, and Cohoes residents.

McCoy announced the Knox Town Hall clinic at his Friday briefing and said, “We’ll be doing Berne and Westerlo.” Rozak told The Enterprise that clinics there have not yet been set up.

“There’s a need up there for the community,” said McCoy of the Hilltowns, noting that, in addition to being underserved, there are transportation issues.

Andrew Joyce, who chairs the county legislature, said that, early on during the pandemic, he had challenged legislators to find out about the needs in their communities.

“We’re still focusing on these neighborhood-based small PODs,” he said of points of dispensing.

Joyce said the White Hall Road area has a large senior population with many people who can’t get out to get vaccinated. He also said there are Spanish-speaking, Muslim, and Asian communities that need to be reached out to. 

“We need to do more to connect,” said Joyce. The goal, he said, is “getting the vaccine to people that couldn’t get it.”

McCoy said that the sheriff’s department will be vaccinating homebound seniors. Although buses are running to the armory, he said, “A lot of seniors don’t want to get on a bus …. They feel like they’re exposing themselves.”

Separately, Guilderland’s supervisor, Peter Barber, announced in his daily email updating town residents on COVID-19 developments that the Guilderland Emergency Medical Services Department is partnering with the sheriff’s office to conduct a vaccine clinic on Monday, March 8, from 10 a.m. to noon at EMS Station One, at 200 Centre Drive. 

Vaccines will be available for people 65 and older by appointment only.  Supplies of the vaccine are limited and participants must pre-register by 5 p.m. on Sunday, March 7, by emailing name, address, and a telephone number for a return call this weekend or Monday morning to .

County POD

Meanwhile, the county’s health department with a medical corps of volunteers is continuing its “herculean task,” said Albany County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen.

She praised the “hundreds of people giving of their time and coming and working flat out for periods of … eight to 10 hours to insure we can get vaccine out the the residents of Albany County.”

McCoy said that 20.5 percent of the county’s population has gotten at least a first shot, the second highest rate in the Capital Region and one of the highest rates in the state. Warren County, he said, has a higher rate at 21.7 percent.

So far the county’s POD at the Times Union Center in Albany has administered 7,865 first doses and 3,368 second doses. On Saturday, the POD expects to administer 2,000 more first doses, to people 65 and older.

Usually the available slots for a clinic fill up in five to 10 minutes, Whalen said. “We put this link out yesterday,” she said on Friday morning, “and we still have a lot of spots.”

Whalen said her staff is working up to 20 hours a day. The three PODs this week will get out more vaccine than in all the previous weeks combined, she said.

“This is not a one-size-fits-all operation,” said Whalen. “We need to be able to have other ways to vaccinate people. And particularly when we’re talking about high-risk communities, communities of color, and isolated communities, we need to be able to bring the vaccine to people so they can be vaccinated in place.”

Her department, Whalen said, is using partnerships forged long before the pandemic. “We’re working on strategic reallocations,” she said. “We’re working on getting vaccine to where it’s convenient for people to get it..”

Whalen said she hopes there will be recognition that local public health entities “will be able to make these decisions.”

Newest numbers

McCoy began Friday’s press briefing with the report of another COVID-related death: a man in his eighties died on Thursday. This brings the county’s COVID-19 death toll to 359.

As of Friday morning, Albany County has had 20,794 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 91 new cases since Thursday.

Of the new cases, 63 did not have clear sources of infection identified, 24 had close contact with someone infected with the disease, and four were health-care workers or residents of congregate settings.

The five-day average for new daily positives has increased to 59.6 from 57.6. There are now 540 active cases in the county, up slightly from 539 yesterday.

The number of Albany County residents under quarantine dropped to 1,504 from 1,613. So far, 65,229 residents have completed quarantine. Of those, 20,254 had tested positive and recovered. That is an increase of 86 recoveries since yesterday.

There were seven new hospitalizations overnight, and there are now 40 county residents hospitalized from the virus — a net increase of five. There are still four patients in intensive-care units.

As of Thursday, the statewide infection rate, as a seven-day average, was 3.16 percent. The Capital Region’s positivity rate was 1.92 percent.

Albany County, as of Thursday, as a seven-day rolling average, had an infection rate of 2.0 percent, according to the state’s dashboard.