Maryland counties continue to ramp up their vaccination capabilities, officials say, but remain stymied by the limited supply of doses they are receiving from the state and federal government.

Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks announced Thursday morning that the county will dispatch mobile units this week to elderly homebound individuals, open more vaccination sites, and text residents to schedule appointments. Though the county will have to temporarily close its sports and learning complex vaccination site for routine maintenance between March 13 and 28, it plans on opening two more – one next week at Kentland Community Center in Landover, and one on March 15 at the Cedar Heights Community Center in Seat Pleasant.

All told, the county has the ability to vaccinate 2,000 people per day, Alsobrooks said – but it only receives about 6,200 vaccines per week.

“People are asking, ‘where in the world are our vaccines?’” Alsobrooks said. “We cannot administer vaccines that we don’t have. I can’t say it any more plainly than that.”

There are currently 120,000 county residents on a waiting list for the vaccine.

Montgomery County officials, meanwhile, announced Wednesday that they’re opening a large-scale vaccination site at Montgomery College’s Germantown campus to prove to the state that they can accommodate a large number of vaccine appointments, although the county health department only receives about 4,200 doses per week. The county also began registering people 65 years and older for vaccination appointments this week.

County Executive Marc Elrich also emphasized the need for more vaccines Wednesday in a virtual press conference with reporters.

“If we’re provided the vaccines, we will open up a mass vaccination site in the county. We’re ready to do it,” Elrich said.

The Maryland Department of Health has already opened a state-run mass vaccination center at the Six Flags in Bowie, but at least one-third of the doses from the site have gone to Montgomery County residents. Only 11% have gone to Prince George’s County residents.

“The unfortunate truth is that people have been made to compete for appointments,” Alsobrooks said. “So there is a whole equity issue that has been created and maybe not anticipated…but the results speak for themselves.”

Data from the state’s Department of Legislative Services shows that Prince George’s County, the hardest hit by COVID-19 in the state, is lagging in vaccine distribution. County residents make up about 15% of the state’s population, but only about 8% of the first doses. Prince George’s and Charles counties and Baltimore City — the state’s predominantly Black communities — have the lowest percentages of people in the population receiving first and second doses.

Alsobrooks said she’d like to see more vaccines go to the Six Flags site.

“I’d like 50% of the vaccines administered at that [Six Flag] site that is in our county to go to Prince George’s County residents,” Alsobrooks said. “Or in the alternative, I believe [in] setting aside a day or days…exclusively to Prince Georgians. This would help us tremendously to be able to increase [inoculation] numbers.”

Alsobrooks added that she’d like to see additional vaccines go to the University of Maryland College Park site, because there are zip codes around that area with large populations of Latino residents heavily affected by the pandemic.

At a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Gov. Larry Hogan suggested that he was amenable to Alsobrooks’ requests. “We are reserving a certain percentage of slots at Six Flags everyday,” Hogan said. “With the increasing supply of doses perhaps we can make adjustments.”

Update: On Wednesday, Hogan announced that, starting next week, the state would reserve 2,100 doses per week at the Six Flags site for people on the Prince George’s County pre-registration list.

The county is also looking to open the First Baptist Church of Glenarden — one of the largest churches in the county — as a vaccination center by mid-March, with the goal of ramping up to 1,000 vaccinations per day. The county would partner with the University of Maryland Medical System to supply some of the vaccines to those sites.

As part of the state’s vaccine equity plan, faith-based and other community organizations can now apply online to the state’s health department to hold vaccinations clinics in their neighborhoods, Hogan, Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford, and Brigadier General Janeen Birckhead of the state’s National Guard told reporters Thursday afternoon.

Birckhead said setting up clinics at smaller churches and other community centers takes only a few days and is a much quicker process than trying to set up mass vaccination sites, which can take weeks of planning.

“It’s community-driven because it’s specific to a community whose needs may be different where there is a barrier,” Birckhead said. “These organizations know their communities and their needs best.”

Interested community organizations can apply on the state website by answering some questions about the square footage of their location, the number of people in their community eligible for the vaccine, and how quickly the organization would like to vaccinate those individuals. The state is already partnering with Casa de Maryland in Laurel and the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring to set up clinics.

“My hope is that we get more vaccines,” Birckhead said. “As we get more vaccines, we’ll be able to go to more places.”

The state is also using data from the 2020 census, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the social vulnerability index, and other indices to reach out to communities that have been hardest hit by the pandemic.

“It’s a top-down and a bottom-up approach,” Hogan said. “We’re trying to do everything we possibly can.”

This story has been updated with comments from Gov. Larry Hogan’s Thursday press conference.