MOUNTING MAJOR VAX PUSH
Health chief seeks volunteers for ‘all-hands-on-deck’ effort to give shots to N.Y.ers
The city is readying an “allhands-on-deck” effort to vaccinate New Yorkers.
Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi took a key initial step on Tuesday, calling for municipal workers to volunteer to work at sites known as points of distribution, where the vaccine will be given. That’s in addition to locations like hospitals and pharmacies authorities are planning to use.
“The Health Department has several thousand individuals who have been trained in [distribution] operations and can support this historic effort. But we cannot do it all alone — we need your support to fully staff and mobilize these [locations], so we can operate a network of NYC COVID-19 vaccine distribution sites on a large scale,” he wrote fellow agency heads.
The city is planning to set up vaccination sites at municipal buildings throughout the five boroughs, with a start date expected in January, according to the Health Department. The sites are expected to serve thousands of people per week. Details including the number of sites are yet to be determined.
The city plans to use a forthcoming website for New Yorkers to set up appointments. Eligibility requirements will be determined by the state, which is prioritizing high-risk groups.
As of Tuesday, more than 67,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine have been given in the city, according to Mayor de Blasio, with the drug prioritized for high-risk health care workers and nursing home residents and staff. The city is planning for the vaccine to be available to the general public “by summer 2021, if not earlier,” Chokshi stated.
While authorities are planning to distribute the vaccine through hospitals, clinics and other providers, the health commissioner noted that the municipal government “may need to add significant capacity in order to offer vaccines to as many New Yorkers as possible across the city.”
That’s where the inoculation sites come in. Those were last used during the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, to vaccinate about 50,000 people at 58 sites over the course of five weekends.
The distribution sites “are central to the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s ... strategic emergency response planning and can be mobilized rapidly to distribute a wide range of ‘medical countermeasures,’ of which a vaccine is one, in response to public health emergencies,” Chokshi wrote. “For this emergency, the city will utilize the [points of distribution] model for COVID-19 vaccines, [with] a citywide network of COVID-19 vaccine [sites].”
Earlier this month, de Blasio
launched a command center to oversee distribution of the vaccine, the first authorized
U.S. dose of which was administered to much fanfare on Dec. 14.
Hizzoner (inset) said the city will work to ensure the vaccine reaches 27 neighborhoods hit hardest by the outbreak, which had claimed 25,008 New Yorkers’ lives as of Monday, according to the Health Department.
“Our citywide vaccination effort is the biggest logistical lift undertaken by any local government in recent history, not to mention totally uncharted territory at this scale — and we are working around the clock to put our teams’ preparation into action, manage all the different moving parts and make sure we get it right,” Deputy Mayor Melanie Hartzog, who’s co-leading the command center, said in a statement.
“The network of NYC Vaccine
Distribution Sites we plan to create exemplifies the all-handson-deck collaboration that will be needed to hit our targets, utilizing [Health Department] long-term strategic planning and support from across city agencies to add vital vaccination capacity citywide,” she added.
The city government will email municipal employees a survey asking if they want to volunteer for the distribution sites, Chokshi stated, adding that agencies can keep workers from participating if they’re determined to be essential for their offices’ functions.