More Than 800 NYC Sites Enrolled To Give Out Coronavirus Vaccine

New York City NY

06 January, 2021

10:07 AM

Description

NEW YORK CITY — The next phase of a slower-than-hoped coronavirus vaccination effort would bring the shots to at least 600 more sites in New York City. Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday updated the state's broad COVID-19 vaccine strategy. He detailed plans to move the effort beyond hospitals to a "retail network" of pharmacies, health departments, health centers, urgent cares and doctor offices for the next phase of vaccinations. "The retail network is a public distribution for essential workers and the general public, and that is already underway," he said. New York City has 845 sites enrolled to administer the vaccine, according to the governor's office. Currently, 207 of those sites are active. Cuomo's update came amid increasing worry and finger pointing about the slow pace of coronavirus vaccinations in the city, state and nation. About 119,000 COVID-19 shots have went into arms in New York City out of 480,100 doses delivered, according to the city's last vaccination update. Mayor Bill de Blasio, who faced criticism for Cuomo on the pace in the city's public hospitals, on Tuesday blamed a number of factors for the slow uptake, including hesitance by health care workers to receive the shots. He asked the governor for permission to distribute the vaccine more widely — so far, only certain health care workers and nursing home residents have permission to receive shots. Cuomo, for his part, said if anything the state needs more vaccines for health care workers. But his focus wasn't all on distributing vaccines to health care workers. He asked groups of essential workers such as the NYPD and FDNY prepare plans to distribute vaccines to their own workers. "The teachers union, the transit workers union, all these frontline essential workers, please now think about organizing your own system so it alleviates the burden on the retail system, which is going to have to be dealing with the general public," he said.