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After Slow Start To Vaccine Rollout, De Blasio Says "Now It's Time To Sprint"
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Sydney Pereira
Published Jan 4, 2021
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By
Sydney Pereira
Published Jan 4, 2021
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After three weeks of a trickle of vaccinations in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio is facing pressure to accelerate vaccine administration immediately, to hundreds of sites, 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
The mayor has put forward a plan to double vaccination capacity by the end of the month. And he wants to see 24/7 sites as well.
Currently, 125 vaccine sites are open, and another 35 will open by the end of the weekend, according to city health officials. The city has so far administered a total of 110,241 doses since December 14th. Just 135 doses were given out New Year's Day; the most were given on December 23rd, when 13,988 doses were administered.
"Getting it right in the first few weeks was the trendsetter," the mayor said during a press briefing on Monday. "Now it's time to sprint."
Eligible healthcare workers can now start booking appointments at two Manhattan locations the next two weeks. Five sites at Health + Hospitals locations can begin vaccinations Wednesday for eligible workers. Three sites will open Sunday at high-schools in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Sites at community health centers and urgent care facilities are also planned.
The mayor is calling on the state to increase vaccine prioritization flexibility, to allow other essential workers as well as older New Yorkers ages 75 and up to start getting shots.
"Having that flexibility is going to allow us to speed up our effort," de Blasio said.
De Blasio said he expects more than 100,000 vaccinations to be administered this week alone—approximately the same amount of doses administered overall in the past three weeks.
The city currently has the capacity to administer 150,000 doses a week. City health officials now hope to get the capacity to 400,000 shots a week by the end of the month.
City Councilmember Mark Levine, chairman of the health committee, is hoping the city will go further than that—immediately.
"This is a warlike situation," Levine said in a phone interview. "And there should be a 24/7 vaccine operation."
He is working on legislation that would require one city health department vaccination site (called PODS, or points of dispensing sites) in every ZIP code to be open 24/7, activate the city's Medical Reserve Corps, create a volunteer training system for anyone who wants to help, and mandate data reporting on the sites.
The mayor was receptive when asked about Levine's proposal on Monday.
Vaccine hubs and clinics opening as soon as Tuesday will have hours from 8 or 9 a.m. until 7 p.m.
NYC Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi said vaccine hubs will be staffed by a group of 13,000 medical personnel in the city's reserve corps, and other city employees may be enlisted for help.
"Several of the hospitals that I've already visited are doing a very late night and early morning vaccination," Chokshi said. "They found that that's actually the best way to maximize throughput for people who are either coming in to their night shift or leaving their night shift, and several of the hospitals have started overnight vaccination as well. I encourage as many hospitals as possible to ramp that up this week, if you haven't already."
Supplies are also needed. The mayor's commitment to administer 1 million doses by the end of January would require nearly double the current allotted doses of 585,850 that the city has.
De Blasio is counting on the federal government to allocate more doses to NYC as its capacity to give the shots to people increases.
"We need the federal government to keep allocating supply to New York City. We need the manufacturers to keep producing it and delivering it. We have enough to get through this week and going into next week. We do not have enough to get through the whole month yet," the mayor said.
Chokshi has called on hospitals to vaccinate more people over the weekends during longer hours.
Public hospitals with Health + Hospitals administers doses over the weekends, but a spokesperson for the health system did not immediately provide information on weekend capacity.
According to state health officials, NYC's public hospitals have administered 31% of the doses allocated to them, compared to 99% in the New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System, for instance.
Governor Andrew Cuomo blamed it on a "management issue" and threatened fines and revocation of future vaccine allocations to vaccine providers if doses aren't used within seven days—a move City Hall criticized as "punitive." Hospitals also face steep state penalties if they distribute the vaccine to recipients outside of the current priority group.
"We're not even giving out the supply we have," Levine said. "So right now, it's about expanding our capacity and overcoming the logistical challenges which are significant."
Rachael Piltch-Loeb, a researcher in public health emergency preparedness, said she anticipates staffing and communication will be a challenge in ramping up vaccinations.
"The ongoing challenges will remain in terms of staffing to actually administer the vaccine and communication to tell people they are eligible and where and when to go," Piltch-Loeb, a preparedness fellow at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and associate research scientist at NYU, said in an email. "The vaccine priority groups in and of themselves shouldn't be the problem as to why vaccination rates are low."
"The priority groups help to ensure equitable distribution of the vaccine," Piltch-Loeb added. Healthcare workers are already both caring for patients and administering the doses in some cases. "[T]he logistics for hospitals to initially vaccinate their personnel may have contributed to slow roll out."
"The perfect cannot be the enemy of the good with regard to priority groups," she said.
Other experts have called for a concrete national strategy.
The federal program to administer doses in nursing homes has been sluggish. In New York, about 47% of the 288 facilities involved in the federal nursing home program with CVS and Walgreens have finished first doses, according to Cuomo. At a press conference Monday, Cuomo said 85% of nursing home residents in the state would receive the vaccine by week's end.
The City Council will hold an oversight hearing on January 12th regarding the slow rollout in New York City.
On Monday, healthcare personnel began administering second shots, which ensures higher protection from the virus—around 95% efficacy in initial studies from both Pfizer and Moderna.
Tagged
vaccines
COVID-19
coronavirus
Sydney Pereira
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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