Mayor Bill de Blasio set the alarm on Friday, saying New York City should be without the coveted COVID-19 vaccine next week.
“We are going to run next week. I’m telling you, at this rate, there will be no dose in New York City until the end of next week if we don’t get a big refuel. [of vaccine], ”De Blasio said during his weekly appearance on WNYC’s“ The Brian Lehrer Show ”.
Hizzoner explained that the Big Apple is getting a replenishment of “very despicable” 100,000 doses a week and that the city has experienced 125,000 doses “in the first four days of this week”.
“Our numbers are increasing every day of how many people we can vaccinate,” said de Blasio, noting that almost 34,000 people were vaccinated in the city on Wednesday.
“If we don’t receive a serious supply, we will have to stop making appointments, just like it happened at Mount Sinai Hospital and NYU-Langone,” said de Blasio. “If there is no supply, we will have to freeze the consultation system. That would be crazy. “
Two of the city’s largest hospital systems, NYU-Langone and Mount Sinai, are no longer scheduling vaccines for now and all systems are expected to run out of vaccine by the end of next week without refueling, the mayor’s office said.
Manhattan’s Mount Sinai Hospital was forced to refuse those seeking to be caught this week, even though people had commitments to receive the injection.
Governor Andrew Cuomo, speaking on Friday during his own press conference, explained that 7 million New Yorkers are now eligible to receive the vaccine, but that there is a delay due to inadequate supply, as the state receives only about of 300,000 doses per week from the federal government.
“It’s like opening a hatch and putting it in a syringe,” said Cuomo, who added that the state received less than 250,000 shots this week.
At that rate, it will take six months to vaccinate everyone currently eligible, said the governor.
“Seven million people chasing 250,000 doses,” said Cuomo. “This is the mathematical problem that you cannot solve.”
Of the 827,715 doses administered across the state, 731,285 of them were the first doses, while 96,430 of them were the second doses of the two-dose vaccine, said Cuomo, citing state data.
Cuomo said that anyone who received the first dose should not be “concerned” about not being able to receive the second dose, although the supply is limited.
“We are sure that we have a second dose for those who received the first dose,” he said.
Commenting on de Blasio’s claims that New York City is on its way to running out of vaccine supplies, Cuomo said, “I don’t know exactly what the mayor was talking about … Some facilities are running on his previous supply.”
“Many facilities in New York City have [vaccine] unused allocation, ”said Cuomo.
The governor added that New York City will receive more doses next week, “but it will be less because the overall allocation is lower”.
Data from the city on Friday show that out of 800,500 shots delivered to the Big Apple so far, 337,518 shots have gone into people’s arms – about 42%.
The city administered 71.3 percent of the 175,000 vaccines it intended to distribute by the end of this weekend, according to the mayor’s office, which said that as of Friday, the Big Apple has less than 186,000 first doses left. .