It was January 5: the Family Health Center in Harlem, in northern New York, had planned to vaccinate twenty priority people against Covid-19. But eight did not come. As a result, the nurse was left with a vial of ten doses, eight of which were unused. It was urgent to use it, Moderna’s vaccines expiring after six hours. The nurse then called a fire station and a retirement home to run off her vaccines. She only found a volunteer. The health department told her that she could only vaccinate those who were eligible, so she ended up throwing away the remaining doses.
“We just have to let the caregivers exercise their judgment to treat those most at risk”, lamented Neil Calman, director of the Harlem center. His mishap, recounted in the New York Times Friday, January 8, sparked an uproar, and New York City Hall attacked Governor Andrew Cuomo’s overly strict guidelines. “It’s annoying, I am speechless”, said the spokesperson for Bill de Blasio, the mayor of the city. In the process, Cuomo expanded the list of people eligible for the vaccine to a group of 3 million people in the state, including those over the age of 65.
The campaign got off to a chaotic start. According to a public hearing at New York City Hall, the city, which has some 8.4 million inhabitants, received on January 12 668,000 doses of vaccines out of the 885,000 promised and had injected only 239,000, including 23 000 for reminders. The goal is to accelerate to reach the million at the end of the month. Slow ramp-up drew sharp criticism. “We all knew for eight months that the vaccine was coming. Why are we only now thinking about how and where to administer it? “, New York City Councilor Carlina Rivera was outraged. At the state level, 3.3% of the population – or 633,000 of the 20 million inhabitants – has been vaccinated, according to the website of the New York Times, while only a third of the doses distributed were administered.
Avoid storage
Mr. Cuomo had, at the end of December 2020, enacted very strict priority rules, which slowed the rise of the vaccination campaign. The governor found himself caught in the crossfire: threatening with a fine of up to $ 1 million (820,000 euros), and loss of their license, as health care providers sought to fraudulently obtain vaccine doses; and threaten hospitals accused of not selling their doses quickly enough. “I don’t want the vaccines in the freezers. I want them in people’s arms ”, urged Cuomo.
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