COVID vaccines
coming Dec. 15
Cuomo calls it ‘largest government
operations since WWII
BY MARK HALLUM
Mark your calendars, Governor
Andrew Cuomo says
there is now a date for when
New York will get its fi rst supply
of Pfi zer’s COVID-19 vaccine
which will be 170,000
doses by Dec. 15.
This will be part of an allocation
from the federal government
that nationwide will
possibly vaccinate 20 million
people with 40 million doses,
but the hurdles of funding for
deployment of the vaccine and
public trust remain, according
to Cuomo.
“You have local governments
who are starting to lay
off essential workers, those are
the central workers you need
to do the vaccine program, this
vaccine administration will
cost the state of billion dollars.
The federal government is not
provided funding to states
anywhere near the amount.
I’ve also been speaking to congressional
leaders across the
board Senate leaders across
the board, if they do a package,
there has to be funding
to administer the vaccines it’s
not enough to say, we’ll deliver
them to your state,” Cuomo
said.”We need a real aggressive
outreach effort, we need
social acceptance and confi -
dence to take the vaccine. This
is going to be the largest governmental
operation, not just
through COVID, this will be
the largest governmental operation
undertaken since World
War Two, in my opinion.”
In terms of whether or not
the state will get the Moderna
vaccine, the Cuomo administration
expects an allocation
but was not certain as to how
many doses or when it would
come through, but that it could
File photo
be two weeks after the Pfi zer
vaccine comes. The governor
said he aspires for New York to
have the fastest deployment of
the vaccine in the country.
former aide Larry Schwartz
back into state service in
order to lead the vaccine
distribution effort.
while a total of 3,900 were
hospitalized and there were
373 put on ventilators, the
state reported.
BRONX TIMES R 2 EPORTER, DECEMBER 4-10, 2020 BTR
Cuomo will be bringing
On Tuesday, 69 New Yorkers
dies from the illness
The state is still short on
funds and expects that CARES
Act funding delivered in
March will be fully exhausted
by the end of December, according
to state Budget Director
Robert Mujica, who said
the Cuomo administration is
on the hunt for options to close
the budget gap.
“So on the, on the budget
we, as you know, we had a $14
billion revenue shortfall. We
still have a $10 billion budget
gap, which we released in the
last fi nancial plan update. On
spending of the CARES Act
funds, the federal government
gave us proximately $5.1
billion,” Mujica said. “We’re
spending right now close to
$7 billion, so we’re allocating
those funds throughout the
year. The CARES Act funds
expire on Dec. 30, so we’ll fully
allocate the full 5.1, and then
the additional funds, we’re
looking for other federal revenue
streams such as FEMA
reimbursements. And if not,
they’ll just add to our gap,
which currently we’re waiting
for the federal government to
provide additional resources
to deal with that revenue gap,
so that’s presently where we
are. We still have over a $10
billion revenue gap and we
will fully expend all of the
CARES Act funds.”
According to Cuomo, this
effort will be a dual effort to
not only deploy the vaccine
but deal with a wave of new
infections that are expected to
test the hospital capacity once
again as well as a new plan released
by the governor yesterday
in which hospitals would
be expected share caseloads
and resources.
Nursing homes, nursing
home workers, congregate
care facilities and healthcare
workers will have priority, according
to Cuomo.
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