Photo by Brian Ferry Pat Faust of Youngsville, Pa., is pictured Wednesday receiving her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. A mass vaccination site will open at the Jamestown Community College campus in Olean this week, U.S. Rep. Tom Reed announced Wednesday

A mass COVID-19 vaccination site is coming to the Jamestown Community College campus in Olean.

About 3,500 doses will be available to eligible residents when the site comes online, which U.S. Rep. Tom Reed announced will be this week. To date, many looking to get vaccinated have had to travel to sites outside the region — with only a handful of small clinics held locally at the State University of New York at Fredonia and Jamestown Community College. In addition, there have been treatments offered by Brooks-TLC Hospital System Inc. in Dunkirk, Westfield Memorial Hospital and some area CVS pharmacies on a limited basis.

Other clinics, including the one offered last Sunday in Celoron for those over the age of 65, have filled quickly.

Residents should be able to make appointments for the Olean clinic shortly through the state Department of Health website. As of press time Wednesday, the Cattaraugus County site wasn’t listed.

“We care about making sure all New Yorkers — including those in underserved communities chronically overlooked by Albany — have fair access to life-saving COVID-19 vaccines,” Reed said.

“We are glad to see the state reversed course and we will continue to fight to ensure the public health needs of Western New York are addressed and the region receives the additional support it deserves. As President Biden has indicated, we can achieve large-scale vaccination for much of the nation by May if we continue to work together.”

Just last week, the Corning Republican said a vaccination clinic was “highly likely” to come to the Southern Tier for residents of Chautauqua, Cattaraugus and Allegany counties. His comments came after an earlier news report indicated that a planned location by the federal government here was rejected by New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Allegany County has one of the lowest percentages of residents receiving the first dose of the vaccine in the state at only 10.2%. Chautauqua County was at 15% and Cattaraugus County had 12.5%. The New York state average, as of Wednesday, was 15.6%.

NEW CASES REMAIN LOW

The Chautauqua County Department of Health on Wednesday announced 19 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus, which brings the total to 7,617 to date. There are currently 116 active cases, seven people with the virus in the hospital, 357 in quarantine and a seven-day positivity rate of 1.3%.

There have been 7,363 total recoveries and 138 deaths attributed to COVID.