New York has administered less than a third of the doses of coronavirus vaccines it has available to date – even as Mayor de Blasio boldly claimed on Thursday that he would have vaccinated one million city residents within a month.
About 630,000 vaccine doses have been sent to the Empire State, but only 203,000 doses had actually reached the arms of New Yorkers as of Wednesday, state records show.
The figure, about 32 percent, is slightly higher than the national rate, with about 22.5 percent of the 12.4 million divided doses being delivered as of Wednesday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In New York City, about 88,000 people received a first dose in the past three weeks, when the vaccine was administered to health professionals and nursing home residents.
“We’re way, way behind where we need to be,” said Councilman Mark Levine, chairman of the New York City Health Committee.
Levine noted that the Big Apple alone has 500,000 health workers in the high-risk category.
“We should vaccinate 400,000 people a week,” he told The Post, calling the vaccination effort “the biggest challenge of the pandemic.”
De Blasio vowed on Thursday that many more people would get the chance next month.
“We’re going to vaccinate 1 million New Yorkers in January,” de Blasio told CNN.
“More people want to get the vaccine and we are going to do that,” he said, calling the campaign a “call to arms.”
However, the city had only received 347,525 doses on Thursday.
To achieve the goal set by the mayor, officials will need to come up with a well-coordinated planning and mobilization effort, said Ayman el-Mohandes, dean of the CUNY School of Public Health.
“It’s doable, but it takes a lot of organization,” said el-Mohandes.
Getting the city’s 500,000 health workers and other emergency responders vaccinated is “the easiest part,” el-Mohandes added – because it’s a captive audience you can sign up for at work.
But switching to vaccinating the elderly and other individuals will be more challenging.
“Each of the stages is dependent on human behavior,” said el-Mohandes. “How are you going to reach these people?”
Even among healthcare facilities, there seem to have been some problems vaccinating staff.
Brahim Ardolic, the CEO of Staten Island University Hospital said Thursday that of the 6,500 employees at the hospital, just under 2,000 have been vaccinated.
“We would like to get more doses,” said Ardolic. “I have people who want to get vaccinated.”
“I would love to have 6,500 DIYers at the door, but I don’t expect it.”
New York State representatives said they have received weekly shipments of vaccines from the FBI and expect to have enough for those who received their first dose to get their second after the three to four week period required between the two shots .
Officials noted that about 221,000 of the 630,000 doses were sent by the FBI to CFS and Walgreens for the federally-led program to inoculate nursing home residents – and argued that the state-run efforts are progressing much faster.
“New York has had one of the most successful implementations of vaccines compared to other states,” said Rich Azzopardi, senior adviser to Governor Cuomo.
“The goal is to make sure nothing is left on the shelf.”
The Trump administration’s health officials in recent weeks discussed a goal of sending enough doses to vaccinate 20 million Americans by the end of 2020.
But as of Wednesday, only about 2.8 million first doses had been administered nationwide, according to the CDC, although officials said there is a delay in reporting for some states.
“We agree that number is lower than we hoped,” Moncef Slaoui, one of the heads of Operation Warp Speed, said at a press conference on Wednesday.
“We know it should be better, and we are working hard to make it better.”
Additional reporting by Kate Sheehy and Lia Eustachewich