Cuomo's rigid COVID-19 vaccine rollout in New York results in 66% unused and expired doses thrown out



New York's rigid rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine has resulted in doses to be thrown out because they expired, according to a new report by The New York Times.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's launch of the coronavirus vaccine has a very limited distribution list in the state's first phase. Under Phase 1A of New York state's distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine, only health care workers, residents and staff at nursing homes, coroners, and certain funeral workers are eligible to get the coveted vaccination.

The strict guidelines of who is eligible to receive the COVID-19 shot has caused vaccines to sit in freezers and not be used. In New York City, only 167,949 of 489,325 doses have been administered, which means that 66% are currently unused, according to the report. In New York state, roughly 50% of vaccines have been used thus far.

The coronavirus vaccine was first available in mid-December, and as of Jan. 1, "about 88,140 people had received the first of two doses, the equivalent of about 1 percent of the city's population," the New York Times reported.

The Callen-Lorde Community Health Center in Manhattan received a small supply of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine to inoculate employees. For two weeks, more than half of the 600 doses sat in freezers.

Dr. Peter Meacher, the chief medical officer at the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, said that he would like to give the vaccine to high-risk patients, but feared breaking the state rules.

The restricted list of those who were legally allowed to get the vaccination has caused some of the coronavirus vaccines to be thrown away.

Bill Neidhardt, the press secretary of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), revealed to the New York Times that clinics were "unable to give out doses because of the strict rules — or even had to throw some out."

"This is so enraging," Neidhardt wrote. "Utterly speechless."

The rigid rules about who is qualified to get the COVID-19 vaccine has caused a rift between Cuomo and de Blasio. The NYC mayor demanded the Democratic governor to expand the list on who can legally get the COVID-19 shot.

Finally on Friday, Cuomo expanded the eligibility list to include people who are 75 and older, teachers, first responders, public safety workers, and public transit employees. The expanded group will be allowed to receive the COVID-19 vaccine starting on Monday.

"On Monday you can start to schedule appointments. Pharmacies will start coming online, some Monday, more on Wednesday … we are going to have thousands of providers coming online next week," Cuomo said.

"New York City has heard enough," a disgruntled de Blasio wrote on Twitter. "We will begin administering shots to City Workers and the elderly in 1B starting on Monday."

Rich people are trying to skip the coronavirus vaccine line, reportedly offering 'donations' of $25,000



The United States rolled out the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine this week. Sandra Lindsay, a critical care nurse from Northwell Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, New York, received the very first coronavirus vaccine in the U.S. at 9:23 a.m. on Monday.

There has been debate on who deserves priority on the coronavirus waitlist. One expert told the New York Times that the elderly shouldn't get priority because "older populations are whiter, " and not providing them with a COVID-19 vaccine would "start to level the playing field a bit" with minorities.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an advisory group for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released its official recommendation on who should be at the front of the line for the COVID-19 vaccine. The ACIP put the following groups on the priority waitlist: Healthcare personnel, workers in essential and critical industries, people at high risk for severe COVID-19 illness due to underlying medical conditions, and people 65 years and older.

However, there are rich people trying to skip the line for the coronavirus vaccine by offering to make substantial "donations," according to a report from the Los Angeles Times.

Dr. Jeff Toll works at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, one of the first hospitals to stock the vaccine. One wealthy individual reportedly offered to make a major "donation" to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to skip the coronavirus vaccine line. The rich person asked Toll, "If I donate $25,000 to Cedars, would that help me get in line?" Toll said no.

California doctors claim that celebrities have ordered their assistants to badger medical clinics until they get on the COVID-19 vaccine priority waitlist.

"Their people are calling me literally every day," an anonymous doctor claimed. "They don't want to wait. They want to know how they can get it more quickly."

Dr. Ehsan Ali, who runs Beverly Hills Concierge Doctor and boasts of celebrity clients such as Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber, said he is getting "hundreds of calls every single day" from people trying to get the COVID-19 vaccine. "This is the first time where I have not been able to get something for my patients," he admitted.

If you don't have a dedicated assistant or $25,000 to bribe your way to the front of the coronavirus vaccine waitlist, you can see approximately how many people are ahead of you by using the New York Times' "Find Your Place in the Vaccine Line" tool.

Expert tells NY Times: Elderly white people shouldn't get coronavirus vaccine priority in order to 'level playing field' with minorities



The COVID-19 vaccine rolled out this week, and now there is a debate about which groups should be a priority on the coronavirus vaccine waiting list. The New York Times attempted to answer the question about the COVID-19 priority list in an article titled "The Elderly vs. Essential Workers: Who Should Get the Coronavirus Vaccine First?"

The article featured health experts, economists, and epidemiologists to give their insight into who should move to the front of the line for the COVID-19 vaccine. Much to the shock of many readers, the experts considered race when deciding who received priority in receiving the potentially life-saving vaccine.

Dr. Peter Szilagyi, a committee member and a pediatrics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, declared, "The issue of ethics is very significant, very important for this country, and clearly favors the essential worker group because of the high proportion of minority, low-income and low-education workers among essential workers."

Harald Schmidt, an expert in ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, told the New York Times, "It is reasonable to put essential workers ahead of older adults, given their risks, and that they are disproportionately minorities."

"Older populations are whiter, " Schmidt told the paper. "Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit."

Schmidt proclaimed that essential workers should be given priority for the vaccine over the elderly, even though people aged 75-84 have a chance 220 times higher of dying from coronavirus than younger adults, and anyone over the age of 85 has a chance 630 times higher, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Marc Lipsitch, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, also hinted that the race of a person should determine who should or should not get priority on the coronavirus waiting list. Lipsitch said that teachers shouldn't be considered essential workers, "if a central goal of the committee is to reduce health inequities."

"Teachers have middle-class salaries, are very often white, and they have college degrees," Lipsitch told the Times.

Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, asserted that teachers should be prioritized because it would allow people to get back to work with reliable child care at schools.

"And if you think generally about people who have jobs where they can't telework, they are disproportionately Black and brown," Gould said. "They'll have more of a challenge when child care is an issue."

Twitter user Jason Compson was one of the first people to point out the concerning racial aspects of the distribution of the coronavirus vaccine found in the New York Times article.

Later in the piece another doctor, named Marc Lipsitch, explains that teachers should not be considered essential w… https://t.co/DzFuytsOtH
— Jason Compson (@Jason Compson)1608271747.0
So to sum up, in this single article by @JanHoffmanNYT, three experts--Schdmit, Lipsitch, and Gould-- say that more… https://t.co/Flz0Bh1rg6
— Jason Compson (@Jason Compson)1608272107.0

BlazeTV personality Dave Rubin tore apart the article, "Just The NY Times quoting a doctor who wants to kill older white people for political purposes. (Which was the next obvious step of the garbage The NY Times has been pushing for years.) 'Expert in ethics' doesn't mean what it used to."

BlazeTV's Allie Beth Stuckey of the "Relatable" podcast, pointed out, "This is so insanely evil. Please, woke Christians, do go on about how Critical Race Theory is just a bogeyman made up by the right that doesn't pose any real threat. Tell me again about how Christian Nationalism is our biggest threat."

New York Post columnist Miranda Devine wrote, "Truly disgusting. Approved eugenics. Elderly are most at risk and should be first in line for a vaccine. The color of their skin is immaterial. What has happened to the medical profession?"

One commenter replied, "This thread shows there is something seriously rotten at the NY Times. The attempts to assign values to people's lives purely by skin color are unethical, immoral, and completely backwards."

Another person noted, "Just a little peek into government run healthcare right here."

The New York Times admitted that governors along with state and local health officials will ultimately decide who gets the coronavirus vaccine first and are not required to follow CDC guidelines.