Karen O’Connor, left, an ICU nurse from Chazy, became the first person in the North Country region to be vaccinated Dec. 15, 2020. Administering the vaccine is CVPH Nursing Director Carly Haag, right. (Provided photo — Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital)

The Essex County Health Department’s role in the fight against COVID-19 is expected to shift in the coming weeks.

So far, hospitals and pharmacies throughout the North Country have been responsible for receiving and administering vaccines, which have been allocated for health care workers, nursing home residents and first responders as part of the state’s first phase of vaccine distribution. The number of people eligible to receive the vaccine is expected to broaden in the coming weeks. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said the general public could be eligible for vaccines in late January at the earliest, and the county Health Department is preparing to step in when that happens.

“The majority of vaccines will stay in hospital centers, but moving forward, more will move to health departments,” Essex County Public Health Director Linda Beers said.

For this county’s eight-person health department, that means transferring some of its workload elsewhere, according to Beers.

A state contact tracing team will be taking on more of the county’s contact tracing duties in the coming weeks, though the health department will continue to work directly with county residents who test positive for COVID-19, according to Beers.

That will free up more time for the department to focus on setting up vaccine clinics.

“Essex County is working to do mass-vaccinations,” Beers said Wednesday. “There is a plan to vaccinate everybody. It’s a staggered, thoughtful distribution of this vaccine. There’s really an emphasis on equity.”

The county plans to identify populations hardest hit by COVID — such as homeless people, those with substance abuse disorders, people who don’t have transportation and the elderly — and ensure they have access to vaccines.

“The Essex County Health Department will set up points of distribution throughout the county, and they will be well advertised. It will not be a one-and-done. We will do this every day, every week,” Beers said.

Vaccine clinics aren’t new for the health department. In the past, the department has set up clinics for everything from rabies to the H1N1 virus. The coronavirus has presented a unique set of logistical problems. Beers has said in the past that when planning for how to distribute a coronavirus vaccine, the department knew it didn’t want to gather people indoors. To address that, the department plans to set up mobile, drive-thru vaccine clinics across the county.

Planning for this new frontier in the fight against COVID-19 comes as the number of cases in Essex County surges. The county reported 110 active cases of COVID-19 on Thursday — 27 new cases in about 24 hours, and more cases than the county has ever seen at one time.

Between Dec. 23 and this past Wednesday, 92 Essex County residents tested positive for COVID-19. That’s nearly double the number of cases this county saw in the months of March and April combined, though testing at that time was limited to hospital inpatients and health care workers only.

During a press conference on Monday, Cuomo said that by the end of this week, the North Country region would have been sent a total 21,850 vaccines since the start of the state’s vaccine rollout effort.

Asked on Friday how many vaccines have been sent to this region — and how many vaccines have been administered — the state Health Department did not answer those questions.

The department did say that more than 200,000 New Yorkers statewide have been vaccinated to date.

“In just two weeks, New York has vaccinated over 200,000 individuals. And following federal guidelines, that started with the highest risk healthcare workers like ICU and emergency room staff and EMS workers, along with staff and residents at nursing homes,” said DOH spokeswoman Jill Montag. “All healthcare workers, including physicians, as well as people with disabilities and those who support them, and home health aides are all in the first priority category to get vaccinated, and vaccines for ambulatory care physicians and staff are scheduled to start next week.”

Public health experts say the state’s vaccine rollout has to speed up before hospitals become overwhelmed again — or before a new variant of the virus spreads in New York, the New York Times reported on Friday.

The new variant of the coronavirus — which is more contagious than the virus that has infected millions in this country — hasn’t yet been found in New York, Cuomo said Wednesday. The variant has been found in this country, however. Cases were found in Colorado and California this week.