Recovery addicts in residential rehabilitation facilities will be among those vaccinated against the coronavirus this week, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday.
During a virtual press conference in Albany, Cuomo said the state expected to receive 259,000 combined doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.
In addition to emergency call center employees and “people who are administering the COVID-19 vaccines, for obvious reasons,” Cuomo said the vaccines would be administered to residents of “OASAS” – the State Office of Addiction Services and Support.
The agency manages 12 treatment centers across the state, with five located in or near New York City, and also certifies and monitors “hundreds” of private facilities, according to its website.
“These are congregational facilities. Congregational facilities are problematic. It’s where you have a lot of people concentrated, ”said Cuomo.
“Nursing homes are obviously the most problematic because they come together with older and vulnerable people. The OASAS facilities, what we call O facilities, they come together – not necessarily older – but they bring together facilities. “
Residents and staff will be vaccinated in state and private rehabilitation centers, as well as facilities administered or licensed by the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities and the Office of Mental Health, according to the state Department of Health.
Emergency medical personnel, coroners and coroners and some funeral directors will also receive vaccines, said a DOH spokeswoman.
Luke Nasta, director of the New York Substance Abuse Providers Association, said the nonprofit group was lobbying rehab patients for vaccines.
Nasta, CEO of the Camelot Family Foundation – which runs two residential treatment centers on Staten Island – said it made sense to give vaccines to drug users because they were more likely to “catch the disease and spread it”.
“We were initially forgotten. We got the attention of the governor’s office and Governor Cuomo acted appropriately, ”he said.
Meanwhile, the percentage of New Yorkers tested positive for coronavirus jumped from 5.8 percent to 8.3 percent during the three-day Christmas weekend, Cuomo said.
The increase may show that the increase in post-Thanksgiving cases is gaining momentum or simply be an aberration caused by fewer people getting tested because of the holiday, he said.
More certain were the hospitalizations related to COVID-19, which increased to 7,559 across the state – up to 376 – and the 114 deaths attributed to respiratory diseases, which raised the number of deaths in the state to 29,629.