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New York has administered less than a third of the doses of the coronavirus vaccine it has so far – even though Mayor de Blasio boldly asserted on Thursday that he would vaccinate a million city residents in one month.
About 630,000 doses of the vaccine were sent to the Empire State, but only 203,000 doses had actually entered the arms of New Yorkers as of Wednesday, according to state data.
The figure, around 32 percent, is slightly higher than the national rate, with about 22.5 percent of the 12.4 million distributed doses being administered on Wednesday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In New York City, around 88,000 people have received a first dose in the past three weeks, as the vaccine began to be given to health workers and residents of nursing homes.
“We are far, far away from where we need to be,” said Councilor Mark Levine, chair of the New York City Health Committee.
Levine noted that the Big Apple alone has 500,000 healthcare workers in the high-risk category.
“We should vaccinate 400,000 people per week,” he told the Post, calling the vaccination effort “the biggest and most important challenge of the pandemic.”
De Blasio promised on Thursday that many more people will get the photo next month.
“We are going to vaccinate 1 million New Yorkers in January,” de Blasio told CNN.
“More and more people want to be vaccinated and we are going to do it,” he said, calling the campaign a “call to arms”.
However, the city had only received 347,525 doses as of Thursday.
In order to achieve the mayor’s stated goal, officials will need to come up with a well-coordinated planning and mobilization effort, said Ayman el-Mohandes, dean of the CUNY school of public health.
“It is doable but it will take a lot of organization,” el-Mohandes said.
Immunizing the city’s 500,000 healthcare workers and other first responders is “the easiest part,” el-Mohandes added – because they’re captive audiences, you can sign up for work.
But moving to immunization of the elderly and other private citizens will be more difficult.
“Each of the steps depends on human behavior,” el-Mohandes said. “How are you going to reach these people?”
Even in health care facilities, there appears to have been some difficulty getting staff vaccinated.
Brahim Ardolic, general manager of Staten Island Teaching Hospital, said Thursday that of 6,500 hospital workers, just under 2,000 had been vaccinated.
“We would like to receive more doses,” said Ardolic. “I have people who want to be vaccinated.”
“I would love to have 6,500 does on my doorstep, but I didn’t expect it.”
New York State officials said they receive weekly shipments of vaccine from the federal government and expect to have enough for those who received their first dose to receive their second after the three to four weeks required between the two injections.
Officials noted that about 221,000 of the 630,000 doses were sent to CVS and Walgreens by the federal government for the federal nursing home inoculation program – and argued that the effort managed by the State was progressing much faster.
“New York has had one of the most successful vaccine deployments compared to other states,” said Senior Advisor to Governor Cuomo Rich Azzopardi.
“The goal is to make sure nothing is left on the shelf.”
Trump administration health officials have discussed in recent weeks the goal of sending enough doses to immunize 20 million Americans by the end of 2020.
But as of Wednesday, only about 2.8 million first doses had been administered nationwide, according to the CDC – although officials said there was a delay in reporting for some states.
“We agree that this number is lower than we expected,” Moncef Slaoui, one of the heads of Operation Warp Speed, said at a press conference on Wednesday.
“We know it should be better, and we are working hard to improve it.”
Additional reporting by Kate Sheehy and Lia Eustachewich
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