New York has administered less than a third of the coronavirus vaccine doses it has available so far – even though Mayor de Blasio boldly claimed Thursday that it will have a million city residents inoculated in a month.
About 630,000 doses of the vaccine were sent to Empire State, but only 203,000 doses had actually made their way into New Yorkers’ arms since Wednesday, state data show.
The figure, around 32 percent, is slightly higher than the national rate, with about 22.5 percent of the 12.4 million doses distributed being administered as of Wednesday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In New York, about 88,000 people have received a first dose in the past three weeks as the vaccine began to be given to health care workers and nursing home residents.
“We’re far behind where we need to be,” said Councilor Mark Levine, chair of the New York City Health Committee.
Levine noted that the Big Apple has 500,000 single health workers in the high-risk category.
“We should vaccinate 400,000 people a week,” he told The Post, calling the inoculation effort “the biggest challenge of the pandemic.”
De Blasio promised on Thursday that many more people will receive the shots next month.
“We will vaccinate 1 million New Yorkers in January,” de Blasio told CNN.
“More and more people want to get the vaccine and we will do it,” he said, calling the campaign a “call to arms.”
However, the city had received only 347,525 doses since Thursday.
To achieve the mayor’s stated goal, officials will need to make a well-coordinated planning and mobilization effort, said Ayman el-Mohandes, dean of the CUNY School of Public Health.
“It’s achievable, but it will take a lot of organization,” he-Mohandes said.
Vaccinating the city’s 500,000 health workers and other nurses is “the easiest part,” he-Mohandes added – because they are captive audiences you can enroll in the workplace.
But switching to vaccinating the elderly and other private citizens will be more difficult.
“Each stage depends on human behavior,” he-Mohandes said. “How will you reach these people?”
Even among health care institutions, there appear to have been some obstacles to vaccinating staff.
Brahim Ardolic, CEO of Staten Island University Hospital, said on Thursday that out of 6,500 hospital workers, just under 2,000 had been vaccinated.
“We would like to get more doses” from the state, Ardolic said. “I have people who want to get vaccinated.”
“I would like to receive 6,500 thresholds at my door, but I don’t expect it.”
New York state officials said they receive weekly vaccine deliveries from the federal government and expect to have enough for those who received the first dose to have a second after the required three to four weeks between the two photos.
Officials noted that about 221,000 of the 630,000 doses were sent to CVS and Walgreens by the feds for the federal nursing home inoculation program – and said the state-led effort is moving much faster.
“New York has had one of the most successful vaccine launches compared to other states,” said Governor Cuomo’s senior adviser Rich Azzopardi.
“The goal is to make sure nothing sits on the shelf.”
Trump administration health officials have discussed in recent weeks the goal of sending enough doses to vaccinate 20 million Americans by the end of 2020.
But as of Wednesday, only about 2.8 million primary doses had been administered nationally, according to the CDC – although officials said there was a gap in reporting for some states.
“We agree that this number is lower than we expected,” Moncef Slaoui, one of the heads of Operation Warp Speed, told a news conference on Wednesday.
“We know it should be better and we are working hard to improve it.”
Additional reports by Kate Sheehy and Lia Eustachewich