Cuomo Says New York to Run Out of Vaccine Allocation Friday

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state on Friday will run out of all the Covid-19 vaccines that have been delivered.

Of the doses sent to New York during the first five weeks of the vaccination program, 28,246 remained, and those would be used up within hours, he said. The state is beginning to receive deliveries of the 250,400 doses it expects to have for the next week.

Providers should schedule appointments only for allocations “they know they will definitely receive,” Cuomo said Friday during a press briefing. He said he doesn’t want providers to have to cancel appointments.

New York is administering 80,000 doses a day and could easily ramp up to more than 100,000, Cuomo said. The governor said he hopes the Biden administration will figure out how to increase production.

President Joe Biden wants 100 million doses administered in 100 days across the nation. If New York receives enough allocations to hit its share of that target, it would take the state 17 weeks to reach broad immunity, Cuomo said. He has estimated that with the current allocation, it could take as long as seven months.

The Democratic governor blamed the Trump administration for expanding eligibility without increasing supply. As of Friday, the state had administered 1,084,531 doses, according to its website. That’s not enough to vaccinate just the first tier, consisting of about 2 million people, Cuomo said.

The state is urging hospital administrators to get their staff vaccinated, Cuomo said. About 67% of the workers have received shots, up from 62% last week, according to the governor. Cuomo has said a low vaccination rate among hospital workers could affect staffing and endanger capacity, which is critical to fighting the virus.

In the past week, New York has seen a slowdown in the rate of hospital admissions for Covid-19, to an average of five a day from more than 100 three weeks earlier. Total hospitalizations have declined by more than 400 in the past two days, to 8,846.

Of 268,001 tests conducted Thursday, 5.65% were positive, according to Cuomo. The state reported an additional 165 fatalities.