New York State Team
New York will continue to restrict COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to health care workers and nursing homes despite calls from local governments to provide the shots to police, firefighters, teachers and elderly above 75, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday.
The comments came amid mounting pressure to expand eligibility following New York s slow rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine within hospitals, where hundreds of thousands of doses languished in freezers several weeks into the effort.
New York has received about 900,000 doses of vaccine and administered 430,000 shots so far, Cuomo said, adding the numbers reflected a major spike this week after hospitals ramped up their efforts to inoculate health care workers.
Rockland County s Department of Health provides eligible residents with COVID-19 vaccine
News 12 Staff
Updated on:Jan 05, 2021, 6:16pm EST
Hundreds of sites are now set up across the state to help more New Yorkers get a COVID-19 vaccine when they re eligible.
One of those sites is Rockland County s Department of Health.
Nurse practitioner Julie Krauchuk was the first person to get a COVID-19 vaccine at the Health Department office. We re all so thrilled to be at this point. That we have something that s going to prevent what s been causing so much distress not only here in Rockland County and New York state but the world, she says.
New York State Team
Dozens of COVID-19 vaccine clinics run by county officials are opening up across New York state as part of the dire push to expand access to shots following a slow rollout inside hospitals and nursing homes last month.
So far, 46 local health departments have received doses of COVID-19 vaccines and plan to begin inoculating health care workers and other groups on the pandemic front lines in coming days and weeks, according to the governor s office and county officials.
The county health departments are part of 636 sites statewide that have been activated thus far in order to get COVID-19 vaccine shots into arms, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday. The other sites include 244 federally qualified health centers, 213 hospital-related locales and 133 urgent care facilities.