Health & Fitness

Coronavirus Vaccine Expands To NY Elderly, Teachers

New Yorkers in category 1b — a group covering people 75 and up and many frontline workers — can start to reserve doses Monday.

New Yorkers in category 1b — a group covering people 75 and up, teachers and police —can start to reserve doses Monday. But expect a wait.
New Yorkers in category 1b — a group covering people 75 and up, teachers and police —can start to reserve doses Monday. But expect a wait. (New York Governor’s Office)

NEW YORK — A wider swath of New York residents most at risk from the coronavirus can start getting COVID-19 vaccine doses starting Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.

Cuomo on Friday announced that vaccine eligibility will be expanded to New Yorkers in category 1b — a group of 1.5 million city dwellers that includes people 75 and up, teachers, police, firefighters and public transit workers.

All those people can start making reservations Monday for doses soon to be available at a newly-expanded range of distribution sites. But there’s a catch — doses will only go out depending on the slow drip of vaccines available, meaning people in line could wait as long as April 16 to get shots, Cuomo said.

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And health care workers in category 1a — the first group to get vaccines — will still have priority over their 1b counterparts, Cuomo said.

“On Monday, it opens for 1a, 1b to the extent you can make a reservation,” he said. “If somebody says you can come in on Monday and get it, fine. To the extent a hospital says, I have vaccine available on Monday, fine. The hospitals still have to prioritize the health care workers, and they have a long way to go, but if they have extra capacity and they can do 1b on Monday, fine.

Find out what's happening in New York Citywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“But make a reservation.”

The announcement opens up vaccine eligibility to 4 million New Yorkers statewide. It also fulfills what Mayor Bill de Blasio has all but begged for every day this week — the ability for local, on the ground groups to vaccinate more groups of vulnerable New Yorkers, especially those 75 and up.

De Blasio, after Cuomo’s briefing, tweeted the city will start those shots next week.

But it’s unclear if New York City public hospitals can indeed start those vaccinations on Monday. Cuomo continued to criticize the slow vaccination pace in the city, claiming just 13 percent of its 1a populations has been vaccinated to date.

He said hospitals have to prioritize giving out shots to their health care workers before they move to 1b people.

Likewise, a new distribution network of pharmacies, urgent cares, doctor’s offices and county health departments have to vaccinate their own workers first before they give doses to people in 1b, Cuomo said.

The state currently receives about 300k vaccine doses a week, Cuomo said. He said at that rate of supply it will take 14 weeks to vaccinate people in both 1a and 1b.

“That’s April 16,” he said.

New Yorkers should brace themselves for long potential waits for the vaccine as they begin to make appointments Monday, he said.

“Don’t be surprised that the appointment is three months from today,” he said. “That is the necessity by the supply we received.”


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