The first respondents started rolling up their sleeves on Monday as new groups became eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in New York on Monday.
Others included in group 1B are prison officers, teachers, public transport employees and people over 75 years old.
Volunteer firefighters, like former chief Tony Gagliardi of Williston Park, say that first aid that runs for emergencies is exposed to COVID-19 much more.
“When you go on different calls, you don’t know what’s going on, you don’t know if people have it. So it is very important that we protect ourselves, ”says Gagliardi.
Nassau County executive Laura Curran said they were prepared to vaccinate 1,000 people at the two county-administered vaccination distribution centers. The centers are located at Nassau Community College and the Yes We Can community center in Westbury.
In Suffolk, Suffolk Community College is a distribution center that opened last week. County executive Steve Bellone said it was only open Wednesday through Saturday and that only people in the healthcare industry were eligible at that time.
When Saturday came, the stock ran out. The county is now waiting for more.
“We were able to administer more than 2,500 vaccines. But we’re out, so the pod is closed, ”says Bellone. “That is really the problem. We need the federal government to release more vaccines. At the end of the day, we can increase it to 5,000 a day just at this facility, but without the supply we obviously cannot open it.”
Bellone says he expects another shipment of the vaccine to arrive by Tuesday. Once you do, the center will reopen for appointments.