NY’s Coronavirus Vaccine Phase 2 Likely Starts In January: Cuomo

NEW YORK CITY — Essential workers and vulnerable New Yorkers likely will start getting coronavirus vaccine doses after the New Year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.

Cuomo on Wednesday said the state’s second phase of vaccine distribution will begin in late January, assuming the flow of vaccines keeps up.

Shipments of vaccines from a Pfizer facility in Michigan started to arrive Monday. The state has received about 88,000 doses total as of Wednesday, Cuomo said.

“It’s the most ambitious governmental operation that has been undertaken. Period,” he said. “And we have been planning for it, we are now implementing it.”

The massive vaccine effort has seen a slow start, but Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio promise it will amp up significantly in the coming days and weeks.

Only frontline health care workers received doses — about 4,100 statewide and 1,600 in New York City — after vaccine shipments started to arrive Monday.

Cuomo said that will change in the next few days as an upcoming shipment of 88,000 Pfizer vaccine doses is set aside for nursing home residents and workers.

Another vaccine developed by Moderna is pending approval by the federal government. Cuomo said, assuming it gets the green light, the state anticipates to receive shipments of 345,000 doses starting Dec. 22.

The added doses and completion of vaccinations in the first phase will set the stage for a wider distribution, Cuomo said.

He directed local hospital systems across the state to set up regional vaccination hubs. New York City’s will be overseen by the Greater New York Hospital Association, he said.

The city’s public Health + Hospitals system has handled much of the response against the virus, from Elmhurst Hospital’s standing as the pandemic’s early epicenter to a massive testing program. Cuomo didn’t elaborate on how hospital systems were picked other than to say there will be no political favoritism.

“It’s a medical procedure, it will be handled by medical professionals,” he said.