Some
Long Islanders told News 12 that they are having a hard time making a follow-up
appointment to get their second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Several
people who have received the first shot say they were instructed to make the
second appointment online or over the phone – but bottlenecks in the system
have been causing issues.
“We're
trying to set it up so we're mobilized to give as many people the vaccine as we
can without overextending, making appointments that we can't meet,” says Dr.
Lawrence Eisenstein, Nassau’s health commissioner. “We're sensitive to the
situation that we don't know how much we're going to get tomorrow, we don’t
know exactly which people are going to be eligible tomorrow. It's a work in
progress, but it really has been successful.”
For
Pfizer's vaccine, the second dose is given 21 days after the first. For
the Moderna vaccine, the second dose comes 28 days later.
Depending
on supply, Nassau health officials say some people might have to wait a few
extra days for that second dose.