NY Restaurant Workers, Taxi Drivers Could Get Coronavirus Vaccine

NEW YORK CITY — Restaurant workers in New York City soon could receive coronavirus vaccines as the city gears up for the return of indoor dining.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday announced that a 20 percent boost in COVID-19 vaccine supply will allow local governments to expand eligibility to restaurant workers, taxi and ride share drivers and those in developmentally disabled facilities.

Those New Yorkers can now be considered priority 1b, one of two groups of New Yorkers that can receive the vaccines, Cuomo said. But he stressed the decision to expand eligibility to them depends on local governments.

“For restaurant workers, they have that flexibility,” he said.

Cuomo’s announcement came shortly after Mayor Bill de Blasio explicitly called on the state to open up vaccine eligibility to restaurant workers. He said it only made sense after Cuomo gave the city’s restaurants to reopen indoor dining at 25 percent on Feb. 14.

“Now that the state made this decision, it follows that we have to protect those workers and they should be added to the 1b category,” de Blasio said.

The announcement also follows a New York Times analysis showing that New York City’s coronavirus case counts are 64 percent higher than in December, when he announced an indefinite ban on indoor dining.

The Times story cast significant doubt on Cuomo’s claim that the state’s coronavirus metrics had improved enough to reopen restaurants in the city and found he cherry-picked data to make the case.

Cuomo acknowledged that economics played a role in his decision to reopen indoor dining in the city. Restaurateurs cried foul that indoor dining was banned in the city while it carried on elsewhere in the state, including in places with higher COVID-19 numbers.

The governor, when asked if de Blasio’s call to open vaccine eligibility to restaurant workers impacted his announcement, said the decision to expand it in New York City falls to de Blasio.