A working group of outside experts convened by Mr. Cuomo to supervise the vaccination plan rarely met and rarely had the opportunity to provide guidance.
For help in planning the vaccination campaign, the Governor turned to consultants from Deloitte and Boston Consulting Group. The internal lobbyist of New York’s largest hospital system, Northwell Health, was directly involved in the rollout.
As of mid-October, Northwell lobbyist, Dennis Whalen, worked from an office within the State Health Department for about a month and helped shape the state’s approach. Mr. Whalen had previously served as the department’s second officer.
“When asked for help, you help,” said Michael Dowling, Northwell’s president and longtime ally of Mr Cuomo. “There is nothing criminal about it at all.”
It was a Northwell hospital nurse, Sandra Lindsay, who received the country’s first dose of Covid-19 vaccine in mid-December, an iconic moment in the pandemic and a PR victory for the private hospital system.
The governor and his aides said vaccine rollout was paralyzed by the federal government, which they blamed for lack of vaccine. They also said poor performance from local authorities and public hospitals, particularly in New York City, slowed distribution. Lately, Mr Cuomo has regularly used his near-daily press conferences to call hospitals by name that he said were not vaccinating fast enough.
After New York became eligible for many more people, it is now rapidly using its weekly shipments of vaccines, excluding doses sent to the state through a federal nursing home program, state data shows.