Police Won't Be Prioritized For Vaccine Over Other Groups: Cuomo

LONG ISLAND, NY — Police won't be prioritized over other groups in the coronavirus vaccination process, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday.

After the first round of vaccinations to heath care workers in hospitals, Cuomo said the next phase, or 1B, will include essential workers such as police, teachers, firefighters, and transit workers, as well as seniors 75 and older.

Some local governments have said they want to prioritize police, Cuomo said. "They can't do that...When we get to 1B, no local government can prioritize one group over the other. You can't prioritize police over firefighters, you can't prioritize police over teachers, and you can't prioritize police over 75-year-old New Yorkers who have the highest death rate in the state."

All comprise one group and they're going to be treated fairly, Cuomo said. "I'm not going to pick police over teachers, over firefighters, over grandpa and grandma and mom, in my case, at 75-plus. That just will not be allowed, period."

However, Cuomo said, police, firefighters, teachers and transit workers will be able to self-administer the vaccination to their own people if they are are trained EMTs, he said, taking some of the burden from those pharmacies tasked with administering the vaccine to the 75 and older group.

UK strain: "We are very worried"

On Thursday, Cuomo said there had been discussions with local governments statewide. "We are very worried about the 'quote unquote' UK strain. We still have only the one case confirmed here in New York but we believe there are more; the CDC announced something like 50 cases across the country."

The one case of the new strain discovered in Saratoga Springs was determined, through contact tracing, to have been caused by contact with someone who had been to the UK, Cuomo said Wednesday.

In the UK, the new strain spread rapidly in three weeks and the concern is overburdening hospitals, Cuomo said. The fear is that the hospitalization rate will spike, hospital workers will become sick and a shutdown could ensue, he said.

Vaccine reallocation plan

That's why Cuomo said, the need to vaccinate hospital staff is dire. Since Monday, when the governor told hospitals he wanted to see allocations distributed and "vaccines in the arms" by Friday, there has been a significant uptick in compliance.

"We have seen a dramatic increase in their performance," he said. Initially, statewide, about 10,000 vaccinations were given per day; on Monday, that number jumped to 30,000 and on Thursday, it stood at 50,000, five times the original rate.

But for those poorly performing hospitals, those who haven't used their allocation by Friday will see it given elsewhere; details of the new reallocation plan will be given Friday.

With about 2.1 million healthcare workers in the state and 900,000 doses of the vaccine, there aren't enough vaccines for half of those who need them. When a hospital has reached its refusal rate, or no additional staffers will take the vaccine, it will be reallocated.

Cuomo said he would expect to see about 80 percent of doctors taking the vaccine and about 70 percent, as a low, or 80 percent, as a high, for nurses. For the vaccination program to reach herd immunity, between 70 to 90 percent is necessary.

Once all healthcare workers are vaccinated and the state moves to 1B, there will be thousands of "retail" distribution points statewide, including pharmacies, doctors' offices, and drive-thru options. There will also be an effort to vaccinate underserved Black and Latino communities where there is still some distrust over the vaccine; public education is critical, Cuomo said.

Cuomo has said he will not be vaccinated until those Black and Latino communities have access to the vaccine.

Virus mutation

The goal is to slow the spread and increase the vaccination rate —as well as stop viral mutations, "something we are not paying enough attention to," Cuomo said this week.

The federal government is increasing vaccine production through Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and the University of Oxford's and AstraZeneca's vaccine; the supply needs to increase, Cuomo said.

Beyond the U.K. strain, Cuomo said there is a South African strain that's been identified; the virus can mutate every few weeks, with hundreds of mutations, he said.

"This country is playing mutation roulette," he said. Questions remain about how the next mutation emerge — whether it will be more lethal, affect children, or prove to be vaccine resistant.

This week, Cuomo once again called out for testing all international travelers before they board a flight to the United States.