STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – New York has been woefully slow in rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. The vaccine is supposed to win the war against coronavirus and let us return to normal life. It’s what we’ve all been looking forward to for months.
So why has New York been so slow to get the vaccine into people’s arms?
Depends on whom you ask.
According to city stats, New York City has received 480,000 doses of the vaccine as of Tuesday evening. But just 118,000 people have received the first dose of the vaccine. A paltry 756 have gotten both necessary shots.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo slammed the slow vaccine rollout in New York City and elsewhere in the state. He said that hospitals that can’t do the vaccine job should drop out and let more efficient facilities take over. He said local leaders like de Blasio had to step it up.
Brandishing his cudgel, Cuomo said that providers must use the vaccine supply they’ve already received by the end of this week or face fines. In the future, all vaccine supplies must be used within seven days or the providers would face additional fines and receive no more supply.
In other words, whatever’s going wrong, don’t look at Cuomo. Funny how Cuomo took credit and wrote a book when things were going well with the pandemic earlier this year. But it’s someone else’s fault now that dark winter has set in.
Pointing the finger back, De Blasio said the governor should loosen the rules on who can currently receive the vaccine. He said providers need “freedom and flexibility” to vaccinate, not threats of fines.
Further deflecting blame away from himself, Cuomo called on the feds to ship more of the approved vaccines to the states and to approve pending vaccines.
All this back-and-forth from two guys who a couple of months ago wanted nothing to do with a vaccine developed under the auspices of President Donald Trump. Now they can’t get enough of the stuff.
And that’s not all. The two also disagree over the need for a travel ban in the face of the mutant coronavirus strain that’s led to another shutdown in the United Kingdom.
De Blasio during his daily press briefing said that all flights to the U.S. from the U.K. should be halted. He said it was time to stop with “half measures.”
During his own press conference later, Cuomo stopped short of calling for a travel ban, even though he called the U.K. virus strain a potential “game changer” and said that containing it was “vitally important.”
Cuomo instead said that airlines should test all international travelers bound for the U.S.
Yes, this is the same Cuomo who’s spent months ranting about how New York got “ambushed” by COVID-19 because Trump was too slow to ban travel here from Europe.
But now, with a confirmed case of the mutant strain already in New York, Cuomo doesn’t see the need for any drastic measures.
In normal times, it’s often amusing to see Cuomo and de Blasio go at one another. But not in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic that’s killing people and gutting businesses.
If these two can’t get on the same page when it comes to launching something as straightforward as a state vaccination program, what good are they to anyone?
We organized massive efforts in the past to immunize against smallpox, polio, swine flu, Asian flu and Hong Kong flu. We vaccinate millions against the flu every year. Why is coronavirus so different?
We’ve always known that there would be a vaccine someday. Where was the planning for that day? It’s like we’re starting from scratch.
The vaccine rollout has been terrible. Cuomo and de Blasio are both to blame. The buck stops with them. Now fix it.