The eligibility list for the coronavirus vaccine in New York expanded to taxi drivers, restaurant workers and residents in facilities for those with disabilities, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Tuesday.
Cuomo granted local governments and municipalities across the state the flexibility to innoculate these groups as New York begins to receive an increased supply of vaccines from the federal government.
The governor announced last week that the vaccinations provided to the state will increase by 20 percent for the next three weeks. Private pharmacies, he said, will receive an additional 10 percent, or roughly 30,000 more doses, from the federal government.
“We’re moving heaven and earth to administer as many doses as possible, but on a global level we are experiencing high demand and scarce amounts of the vaccine,” Cuomo said. “We have much more distribution in place than we have supply, and as soon as we have more doses from the federal government we can get those shots in the arms of New Yorkers as quickly and fairly, while continuing to make sure the communities hardest hit have access to and trust in the vaccine.”
CVS Health said its eligible 32 locations throughout the state will begin to offer the coronavirus vaccines starting on Feb. 11. The eligible pharmacies throughout the state are expected to receive more than 20,000 total doses to prioritize vaccinating people who are 65 and older, according to officials.
The state’s average weekly inoculation rate is around 300,000 doses, but the number remains insufficient in the ongoing efforts to administer doses to people as quickly as possible. More than seven million New Yorkers were eligible to receive the vaccine before Cuomo expanded those eligible to include taxi drivers, restaurant workers and those who reside in facilities for people with disabilities.
Of the seven million people in New York already eligible to receive the vaccine, 870,000 are education workers, 207,000 are first responders, 100,000 are public safety workers, 100,000 are public transit workers, and more than three million are people 65 and older.
As of Wednesday, the state’s health care distribution sites had administered more than 90 percent of the first doses received from the federal government since the inoculations began in December. Distribution centers on Long Island had administered 213,037 of the 288,360, or 74 percent, of the doses they had received since December.
Despite the administration rate being above the statewide average, Long Island had the lowest level of hospital workers who have received vaccinations. Northwell Health, the health care system that is spearheading distribution efforts on Long Island, stressed the need to vaccinate health care workers as quickly as possible.
“As New York State’s largest health system and private employer, Northwell Health remains focused on vaccinating our front-line workers — and each day we inoculate hundreds more of our team members,” a statement from Northwell said. “We do not make the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory and expect the rate of vaccinated staff to vary from facility to facility.”
Cuomo said recommendations to use the distributed second doses of the vaccine as first doses for others have been circulating. Cuomo said the federal government does not permit that due to potential confusion with scheduling future inoculations.
“If you start using the second dose as the first dose, you have to have a dramatically increased supply because otherwise, you’re going to leave people without a second dose when their appointment is due 21 days later, and that’s why the federal government has not approved that,” Cuomo said last week.
