New York expands COVID vaccine eligibility to 65+ and immunocompromised
ALBANY — New York is expanding COVID vaccine eligibility to include people over the age of 65 and those who are immunocompromised, Gov. Cuomo announced Tuesday.
The move, being made in accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, will mean a total of seven million people in the state are now eligible while New York only receives 300,000 doses a week from the federal government, the governor warned.
“The federal government didn’t give us an additional allocation,” Cuomo said during a call with reporters. “How do you effectively serve 7 million people, all of whom are now eligible, without any priority? If I’m 90 years old I’m in the same class as a person who is 65-plus.”
The governor on Monday reluctantly allowed essential workers, including police officers, firefighters, public transit and safety workers and people over 75 to begin signing up for immunizations after Mayor de Blasio pleaded with the state for the better part of a week.
Cuomo at first resisted, arguing that “hundreds of thousands” of health care workers, especially doctors and nurses handling COVID-19 patients, have yet to be vaccinated as hospitals face a growing number of infected patients.
He reiterated that point Tuesday, while saying the state will follow the CDC guidance so as not to cause confusion.
“The policy and the intelligence of the federal system eludes me but we will do the best we can,” Cuomo said.
“I don’t want New Yorkers to think we are not doing everything we can to make them eligible for the vaccine because I want to keep people in New York as calm as we can keep them in these anxious times and I don’t want people to think that people in any other state are eligible when they are not,” he went on.
By opening up the vaccinations to people 65 and older, the total number of those eligible is now nearly seven million New Yorkers.
Cuomo warned that it could take about six months to vaccinate that many people with the current weekly allotment of 300,000.
The governor expressed hope that under President-elect Biden the feds will up production and acquisition of vaccine doses in the weeks following the Jan. 20 inauguration.
Biden’s COVID team has weighed the option of distributing more doses to states by straying from the current practice of holding back immunizations to ensure that second doses of the vaccines are available.
Cuomo additionally argued that the CDC failed to issue specifics about who qualifies as immunocompromised, which could cause problems for pharmacies and others distributing doses.
The designation could lead to an overly broad category that opens up millions more to become eligible.
New Yorkers can determine whether they are eligible or schedule a vaccine appointment through a recently launched state website.
The expansion comes as the state continues to see hospitalization rates and new coronavirus cases climb.
On Monday, a total of 8,926 people were hospitalized with 1,492 in intensive care units and 909 intubated.
Additionally, 164 more New Yorkers died of virus, Cuomo said.
