ALBANY — With the first shipment of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine expected to arrive in New York this weekend, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday detailed the state's plan to distribute the first round of vaccinations.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is meeting Thursday to review the vaccine, and the drug has already won approval from regulators in Canada and the United Kingdom. Once its approved by the FDA, Cuomo said, the state's independent panel will convene immediately to approve it as well, a step he said he hopes gives New Yorkers extra confidence in the safety of the treatment.
“I cannot think of a government operation that has commenced that is more difficult and intricate than what government is being asked to do here," Cuomo said. "This is going to test capacity all across the board."
The governor outlined how much vaccine each region will receive of the first batch of 170,000 vaccines that the state will receive. The Capital Region will get 7,850, or a little less than 5 percent. The first vaccinations will go to nursing home residents and staff, as well as front-line health care workers who are treating patients.
Cuomo has frequently raised concerns that vaccines will be unfairly more available to white people than poor people or people of color, saying Wednesday, "We have to make sure this nation understands that we can’t make the same mistake twice," a reference to the elevated infection and death rates from COVID-19 among those communities.
The federal government is procuring the vaccines and sending them out to the states, which are being directed to decide who in the states get access to the vaccines, where and in what order. He will thus have the power to ensure that doesn't happen in New York.
“We will not only set the priorities of where it goes but who gets it," Cuomo said.
The vials must be held at intensely cold temperatures and the boxes holding them can only be opened for limited periods of time or they will spoil. The state has operationalized 90 storage facilities for the vaccine across the state, the governor said. A critical mass of as high as 80 percent for vaccinations needs to be reached before the state can return to full, normal economic activity, Cuomo said.
Cuomo has questioned the integrity of the FDA's approval process, and also repeatedly cited polls he said indicate many people are skeptical about taking the vaccine, especially in communities of color. The state will also be partnering with civil rights groups and kicking off a public education campaign to raise public confidence in the vaccine.
All nursing home residents are expected to be vaccinated with the first batch of vaccines, the governor said, which will be administered through a federal program partnering with Walgreens and CVS. Staff members will begin to be vaccinated on a rolling basis, and they'll be next in line for future batches. Members of the New York National Guard who have been working on the COVID-19 task force will also gain access to the vaccine through a federal Department of Defense program, Cuomo said.
The statewide COVID-19 numbers announced Wednesday continued the winter surge in cases seen in recent weeks. The statewide positivity rate was 5.44 percent. There were 95 deaths. Hospitalizations increased by 158, now nearly at 5,000 — a continued area of concern for the state, Cuomo said.
Howard Zucker, commissioner of the state Department of Health, penned a letter Wednesday to hospitals and nursing homes around the state highlighting this concern. The letter notifies them that they should be tracking their hospitalization and infection rates to identify encroaching issues with capacity. The state would then begin a "surge and flex" protocol to recruit retired health care workers and increase capacity again to deal with the caseload.
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