Cuomo hails news of Pfi zer COVID-19 vaccine
TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | NOV. 13-NOV. 19, 2020 9
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
Like many Americans,
Governor Andrew Cuomo
sees great promise in Monday
morning’s reports that Pfizer
had developed a COVID-19 vaccine
that’s proven more than
90 percent effective in clinical
trials, and could be ready
for mass distribution within
weeks.
The only downside, Cuomo
said in a Nov. 9 interview on
ABC’s “Good Morning America,”
is that the outgoing Trump
administration will be responsible
for vaccine distribution
— at least at the start.
“It’s good news, bad news,
George,” Cuomo said in his interview
with George Stephanopoulos.
“The good news is that
the Pfizer tests look good and
we’ll have a vaccine shortly.
The bad news is that it’s about
two months before Joe Biden
takes over, and that means this
administration is going to be
implementing a vaccine plan.”
Over the last several weeks,
the governor has been outspoken
in his criticism of the
Trump regime’s plan for administering
hundreds of millions
of doses to Americans.
The plan is primarily reliant
upon hospitals and chain pharmacies
such as CVS, Rite Aid
or Walgreens serving as key
distribution points.
But not all communities —
particularly low-income areas
hardest hit by the pandemic
— have high-quality medical
facilities or chain pharmacies,
Cuomo warned.
“They’re going to take this
vaccine and they’re going to
go through the private mechanism:
through hospitals,
through drug market chains,
et cetera,” the governor said
Monday. “That’s going to be
slow and that’s going to bypass
the communities that we
call health care deserts. If you
don’t have a Rite Aid or a CVS,
then you’re in trouble.”
Cuomo, who chairs the
National Governors Association,
said he is speaking with
his peers across the 50 states
to figure out how the Trump
regime’s plan could be shaped
“to fix it or stop it before it does
damage.” He expressed greater
confidence in the ability of
President-elect Biden to handle
the pandemic — though the
46th president won’t take office
until Jan. 20, 2021.
“I think his first step saying
let’s focus on the science,
let’s depoliticize testing data,”
Cuomo said. “Listen to the
science is the exact opposite
of Trump, but you have two
months and we can’t let this
vaccination plan go forward
the way the Trump administration
is designing it. Biden can’t
undo it two months later.
We’ll be in the midst of it.”
COVID-19 cases continue
to surge across America, with
more than 130,000 new cases
detected every day. It’s expected
that the country will cross
the 10 million case threshold
on Monday; the virus first
arrived in America back in
January.
New York was one of the
first hard-hit states in March
and April; the virus killed
thousands before social distancing
and mask-wearing
mandates finally allowed the
state to flatten the curve and
reduce the infection rate.
Even though New York continues
to have one of the lowest
COVID-19 infection rates in
the country today, cases are
ticking upward, with the infection
rate above 2 percent. Still,
Cuomo expressed confidence
that New York would help to
control the virus with a strategy
of attacking micro-clusters
of cases where they develop.
“You have to control the virus,”
Cuomo said. “We know
how to deal with it. You isolate
people who have a virus.
You do the testing, you follow
the data and you put in restrictions
and government has to
step up. You need a national
mask mandate and when you
see the virus starting to flare
up – we call them micro-clusters
– we do so much testing
that we can see it in a neighborhood.
Then you bring in restrictions
to close down activity
in that neighborhood.”
Reach reporter Robert Pozarycki
by e-mail at rpozarycki@
qns.com or by phone at
(718) 260-4549.
REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
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