State is in a ‘footrace’ for vax: gov

New York is in a “footrace” to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of people across the state, Gov. Cuomo said Sunday as COVID-19 cases continued to surge.

State officials recorded 15,355 new cases of the virus on Saturday, the governor said. Cases have been steadily rising since September — and the number of daily positives recorded in the state is nearly triple what it was just before Thanksgiving as the holiday season led to an increase in travel and indoor gatherings.

Now — four weeks after the first COVID-19 vaccines were administered in New York — Cuomo said there’s a new urgency to quickly inoculate New Yorkers before infections get even more out of hand.

“New York State is now in a footrace between how fast the infection rate rises and how fast we can administer vaccines,” the governor said in a statement. “With more U.K. strain cases being found across the country, it is even more important that New Yorkers continue to follow the guidelines.”

Cuomo on Friday announced he’d expand the number of people in the state who are eligible to receive the vaccine, buckling to pressure from Mayor de Blasio and health officials who criticized the state’s strict eligibility requirements as a cause for a slow rollout. The sluggish rollout forced some vaccines to be discarded because they were not used in time.

Roughly 185,000 New York City residents — or just over 2% of the city’s population — had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine as of Sunday. The city has 524,000 vaccine doses, data show.

More people will be able to receive vaccinations starting Monday, including anyone over the age of 75, teachers, police officers, firefighters, public transit workers and public safety workers. Most of the state’s health care workers and nursing home staffers have been eligible to receive the vaccine since it arrived.

Those who are eligible for the vaccines will be able to reserve a time on city and state websites to get one.