Butler Health System officials said they will need time to adjust to the latest updates made to the state's vaccine distribution plans.

In a statement Tuesday, BHS CEO Ken DeFurio said the administrators will need to regroup on the rollout of the vaccines.

“Butler Health System looks forward to distributing vaccinations as widely and broadly as possible,” DeFurio said. “Unfortunately, despite the fact that the Pennsylvania Department of Health has expanded the eligible group, the availability of vaccine that DOH has provided comes nowhere close to being able to vaccinate all of those it has deemed eligible. It is in fact a very small fraction.”

The Department of Health announced new updates to its vaccine distribution on Tuesday.

The key change includes the additional eligibility of people ages 65 and older and people ages 16 to 64 who have comorbidities. These conditions include more serious health issues, such as cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and down syndrome, but also include other conditions such as obesity, pregnancy and smoking.

“There are more than 3.5 million Pennsylvanians that are now in Phase 1A of our vaccine plan,” said Cindy Findley, Department of Health's Deputy Secretary for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. “We must have patience as the amount of vaccine in Pennsylvania and in the nation remains limited.”

Since its original inception, the state's vaccine distribution plans have mirrored those produced by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The updates match those made at the federal level last week.

“We want to align with federal advice,” Findley said. “That's the advice we were given.”

As of Tuesday, the state remained in Phase 1A with some estimates that this may go on for several more weeks.BHS officials said they will have to modify how people sign up for the vaccine as well as other procedures that will need to change because of the new guidance.“For now, given the very small amount of vaccine on hand, BHS is soliciting the advice of its medical staff in determining which patients are at highest risk and in greatest need of vaccine,” DeFurio said. “BHS will continue to request as much vaccine as possible from Pennsylvania DOH. It will expand vaccinations as soon as it is able.”BHS officials did not report how much vaccine the system had in stock as of Tuesday nor how many its staff has administered.

According to the Department of Health's COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboard, 4,616 county residents have received one dose of the vaccine and 1,273 have received two doses. The dashboard does not show how many doses have been distributed, only the number administered, and it does so on a county basis, not separating individual providers.According to the Department of Health's Vaccine Provider interactive map, BHS is one of three locations marked with green pins on the map. The other two are UPMC Passavant in Cranberry and Saxonburg Drug. The other pinned locations are marked red, many of which are pharmacies.“Green shows those locations have vaccines,” said April Hutchenson, spokeswoman for the Department of Health. “Red indicates they don't. They're a provider, but they don't have vaccine available.”In regard to availability, Findley said the largest challenge is not the number of people eligible, but rather the plateaued number of doses the state has received in shipments.According to CDC data, the state received 142,350 doses of the Pfizer- BioNTech vaccine last week and will receive the same amount next week. This amount is less than the shipments received on the weeks of Dec. 14 with 195,000 and Dec. 28 with 177,450 doses.According to the CDC data, the state received 144,200 doses of the Moderna vaccine last week and will see the same amount next week.“It will be challenging, because we haven't received additional vaccine doses,” Findley said.

Meanwhile, the county's coronavirus numbers continued to decrease.According to Tuesday's report by the Department of Health, the county added 42 new confirmed cases, a decrease for the fourth day in a row and its lowest single-day increase since a lag in reporting saw zero new cases and zero new deaths added Jan. 3.The death of one county resident was included in Tuesday's report.