Mayor Bill de Blasio sounded the alarm on Friday that the coveted COVID-19 vaccine will run out next week.
‘We’ll be up next week. I’m telling you, at this rate there will be no more doses in New York City by the end of next week if we don’t get a big supply [of vaccine]’Said de Blasio during his weekly guest spot on WNYC’s’ The Brian Lehrer Show’.
Hizzoner explained that the Big Apple has been supplied with “a very meager” 100,000 doses per week and that the city has received 125,000 shots “in the first four days of this week.”
“Our number of people we can vaccinate is increasing every day,” said de Blasio, noting that nearly 34,000 people in the city were vaccinated on Wednesday.
“If we don’t get serious supplies, we will have to stop taking appointments, just as happened at Mount Sinai Hospital and NYU-Langone,” de Blasio said. ‘If there is no stock, we will have to freeze the appointment system. That would be insane. “
Two of the city’s largest hospital systems, NYU-Langone and Mount Sinai, are not booking vaccine appointments for now, and all systems are expected to run out without restocking by the end of next week, the mayor’s office said.
Manhattan’s Mount Sinai Hospital was forced this week to turn down those who wanted to be expelled, even though people had appointments to get the injection.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, speaking later Friday at his own press conference, explained that 7 million New Yorkers are now eligible to receive the vaccine, but there is a backlog due to insufficient supply, as the state only has about 300,000 doses per week from the federal government. government.
“It’s like opening a floodgate and putting it through a syringe,” said Cuomo, adding that the state received a smaller number of 250,000 shots this week.
At that rate, it will take six months to vaccinate everyone who is currently eligible, the governor said.
“Seven million people are hunting for 250,000 doses,” said Cuomo. “That’s the math problem you can’t solve.”
Of the 827,715 doses administered statewide, 731,285 of them were the first doses, while 96,430 of those were the second doses of the two-dose vaccine, Cuomo said, citing state records.
Cuomo said anyone who got their first dose shouldn’t worry about not being able to get their second dose, even though supplies are limited.
“We make sure we have a second dose for whoever got the first dose,” he said.
Commenting on De Blasio’s claim that New York City is on track to go without a vaccination, Cuomo said, “I’m not exactly sure what the mayor was talking about … Some facilities operate through their former stock.”
“Having a lot of facilities in New York City [vaccine] allotment unused, ”said Cuomo.
The governor added that New York City will receive more doses next week, “but it will be less because the total allocation is less.”
Friday’s city data shows that of the 800,500 doses delivered to the Big Apple so far, 337,518 shots have been fired into people’s arms – about 42 percent.
The city has administered 71.3 percent of the 175,000 vaccines it plans to distribute by the end of this weekend, according to the mayor’s office, which said the Big Apple has fewer than 186,000 first doses left as of Friday.