Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady counties form partnership, gain extra COVID vaccine doses

John Cropley, The Daily Gazette, Schenectady, N.Y.
·1 min read

Mar. 3—ALBANY — Albany, Rensselaer and Schenectady counties have formed a partnership that has led to the state sending them more COVID vaccine jointly than it would have allocated to them individually.

Leaders of the three counties announced the move Wednesday morning.

The immediate result will be additional vaccination clinics this weekend to dispense roughly 4,000 additional doses. The events will be reserved for people age 65 and older; additional details will be announced soon.

Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy, Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin and Schenectady County Manager Rory Fluman said the interconnected nature of the three neighboring counties made the agreement both possible and, to some extent, necessary.

There is so much travel between the counties that collective immunity can't be achieved if one county lags too far behind the others.

The other large-population county in the Capital Region — Saratoga County — may be looped in soon, McCoy said. It was excluded mainly because of the speed with which the arrangement was made with state officials.

The three counties will get about 1,000 doses each from this extra allocation.

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