WATERFORD, Conn. — Waterford Police were called to a Waterford CVS after a group of New York state senior citizens showed up looking for vaccinations.
Lt. Nicole Vanoverloop a group of people over 75 years old New York residents showed up at the CVS in Waterford around 2pm Thursday.
They told police they signed on to CVS's website which allowed them to make an appointments at the CVS is located on 106 Boston Post Road in Waterford
Vanoverloop said they showed up and weren't allowed to get vaccinated.
Representatives of the Department of Public Health was also on the scene and made some calls to assist the seniors.
Police said the group was upset, but didn't cause any problems.
Josh Geballe, the state's Chief Operating Officer and Gov. Lamont both reiterated in their afternoon briefing that to get the vaccine in the state, one has to either work or live in Connecticut and the state has reciprocal agreements with New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
“It’s unfortunate that this happened but the system worked and there was a double-check and the people who were not eligible were turned away,” DPH Commissioner Diedre Gifford said.
Commissioner Gifford said situations like this must be avoided --as states are allocated a certain number of vaccines from the federal government based on its population.
“That means the number of doses we get is really for the people of Connecticut and in every state, the vaccine is for their residents, so the integrity of this program depends on people following those guidelines,” Gifford said.
According to Governor Lamont, the state’s vaccine allocation has been trending up 5% week by week, that’s about 64,000 doses per week plus another 11,000 doses per week coming from CVS and Walgreens.
DPH said the Waterford incident could have been a misunderstanding but officials hope it sends a message.
“Hopefully this incident will make it clear to people if you live out of state and you don't work here in Connecticut then you need to get in line in your own state,” Gifford said.
DPH said their goal is to ensure every Connecticut resident received a vaccine and so far, the state has administered more than 460,000 doses.
Watch More: Connecticut Vaccine Updates