After three weeks of vaccinations in New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio is being put under pressure to speed up vaccine administration immediately, to hundreds of sites, 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
The mayor proposed a plan to double the vaccination capacity by the end of the month. And he also wants to see 24/7 websites.
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 administered a total of 110,241 doses so far since December 14. Only 135 doses were distributed on New Year’s Day; most were given on December 23 when 13,988 doses were administered.
“Getting it right in the first few weeks was the forerunner,” the mayor said during a news conference Monday. “Now it’s time to jump.”
Eligible health care workers can now begin booking appointments at two locations in Manhattan over the next two weeks. Five sites at Health + Hospitals could begin vaccinations Wednesday for eligible workers. Three works 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 appealing to the state to increase the flexibility of vaccine prioritization so that other essential workers as well as older New Yorkers 75 years and older can start getting shots.
“If we are so flexible, it will enable us to accelerate our efforts,” de Blasio said.
De Blasio said he expects more than 100,000 vaccinations to be given this week alone – about the same amount of doses that have been given in general over the past three weeks.
The city currently has the capacity to administer 150,000 doses per week. City health officials are now hoping to get the capacity at 400,000 shots per week by the end of the month.
City councilor Mark Levine, chairman of the health committee, hopes the city will go beyond that immediately.
“This is a warlike situation,” Levine said in a telephone interview. “And there needs to be a 24/7 vaccination.”
He’s working on legislation that requires one vaccination site from the city’s health department (called PODS, or delivery points) in each zip code 24/7, activate the city’s medical reserve corps, create a volunteer training system for anyone who wants to help, and give instructions for reporting data on the sites.
We submitted the following @nycc Council draft legislation:
* requires at least one covide vaccination center (POD) in each zip code to be open 24/7
* requires the activation of the NYC Medical Reserve Corps for the vaccination program
(1/2)– Mark D. Levine (@MarkLevineNYC) January 3, 2021
Prioritization is critical.
But giving a vaccine to someone of lower priority is better than giving it to no one.
If a website does not use all of its time slots / doses on a given day, they should be able to provide photos to those with lower priority. (From now on they can be fined for this)
– Mark D. Levine (@MarkLevineNYC) 4 January 2021
The mayor was receptive when asked about Levine’s proposal on Monday.
Vaccination centers and clinics, which are open on Tuesdays, are open from 8 am to 9 am until 7 pm
NYC Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi said vaccines would be staffed by a group of 13,000 medical staff in the city’s reserve corps, and that other city employees could be called in for help.
“Several of the hospitals I have visited take in very late in the morning,” Chokshi said. “They have found that it is actually the best way to maximize throughput for people who go to their night shift or leave their night shift, and several hospitals have also been vaccinated overnight. I encourage as many hospitals as possible to do this this week, if you it has not done so yet. ‘
Stocks are also required. The mayor’s commitment to administer 1 million doses by the end of January requires nearly double the current dose of 585,850 the city has.
De Blasio is counting on the federal government to allocate more doses to NYC as the ability to give the shots to people increases.
“We need the federal government to continue to award the offer to New York City. We need the manufacturers to keep producing and delivering it. We have enough to go through this week and go in next week. We have not had enough through the whole month yet, ‘said the mayor.
Chokshi requested hospitals to vaccinate more people during longer weekends.
Public hospitals with Health + Hospitals give doses over weekends, but a health system spokesman did not immediately provide information on the weekend’s capacity.
According to state health officials, NYC’s public hospitals administered 31% of the doses, compared to 99% in the New York Presbyterian Healthcare System.
Governor Andrew Cuomo blames it for a ‘management issue’ and threatens fines and revocation of future vaccine allocations to vaccine providers if doses are not used within seven days – a move the city hall calls a ‘punishment’. Hospitals are also fined if they distribute the vaccine to recipients outside the current priority group.
“We do not even release the stock,” Levine said. “So now it’s about expanding our capacity and overcoming the logistical challenges that are important.”
Rachael Piltch-Loeb, a researcher in emergency health for public health, said she expects staff and communication will be a challenge to increase vaccinations.
“The ongoing challenges will remain with staff to actively administer the vaccine and communications to tell people that they are eligible and where and when to go,” said Piltch-Loeb, a Harvard preparedness associate. TH Chan School of Public Health and co-research. scientist to NYU, said in an email. “The groups that prioritize the vaccine should not in themselves be the problem why the vaccination rates are low.”
“The priority groups are helping to ensure a fair distribution of the vaccine,” Piltch-Loeb added. Healthcare professionals already care for both patients and in some cases administer the doses. “[T]the logistics for hospitals to vaccinate their staff initially may have contributed to it slowly rolling out.
“The perfect cannot be the enemy of the good in terms of priority groups,” she said.
Other experts called for a concrete national strategy.
The federal program for administering doses in nursing homes was sluggish. In New York, according to Cuomo, about 47% of the 288 facilities are involved in the federal nursing program with CVS and Walgreens. Cuomo said at a news conference on Monday that 85% of residents of nursing homes in the state would receive the vaccine by the end of the week.
The city council is holding a supervisory hearing on January 12 over the slow rollout in New York City.
New Yorkers are rightly concerned about the slow pace of vaccine vaccination so far. We are holding a surveillance hearing on Tuesday, January 12 to determine if the city is doing everything in its power to vaccinate New Yorkers safely and effectively as quickly as possible.
– NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson (@NYCSpeakerCoJo) 4 January 2021
On Monday, healthcare professionals began administering second shots, which ensure higher protection against the virus – about 95% efficacy in initial studies from both Pfizer and Moderna.