New York City will run out of COVID-19 vaccine doses in a matter of days, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday, deepening uncertainty and confusion over the fraught vaccine rollout.
De Blasio had warned Monday that with limited supply from the federal government -- 300,000 doses per week for the entire state -- the city would run out of the vaccine within two weeks.
“We have a fundamental problem here,” de Blasio said Friday morning on the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. “We are not going to have enough vaccine by the end of next week, and we need maximum pressure on Washington and Albany and on the manufacturers to deliver us hundreds of thousands of more doses, immediately.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo also called for more vaccines from the federal government, while chastising the city for not effectively distributing the doses it has. On Friday he said that the city has only used 60% of its supply, while the state has not administered about a quarter of the doses it has received.
The city currently has fewer than 186,000 doses total on hand, according to the mayor’s office. On Thursday, the total number of vaccines distributed in the city dropped slightly, according to city data, from 24,797 on Wednesday, to 23,122.
Cuomo also said Friday that the state had received 50,000 fewer doses than the 300,000 it received from the federal government the week before.
The confusion surrounding the vaccine rollout has led to bipartisan criticism of the governor, with a group of Hudson Valley lawmakers saying in a letter Friday that “A lack of transparency and clear guidance has created unnecessary panic and frustration for our constituents."
On Thursday, two major hospital systems -- Mount Sinai and NYU Langone -- stopped taking further appointments after exhausting their own vaccine supplies, and in the case of Mount Sinai canceled them until the middle of next week.
And the gates of the Brooklyn Army Terminal vaccination site were locked Friday around noon, with city officials citing a "dire shortage of vaccine" doses.
In a statement, the city said, "BAT has temporarily run out of doses. We stand ready with the infrastructure to vaccinate the people of our city, but we urgently need a resupply of doses from the federal government for this to actually happen."
People with appointments to receive their shots were told they couldn't get inoculated Friday. Those turned away were told to reschedule.
The city has emphasized that only people who are eligible -- 65 years old and up or included in the state’s list of eligible professions -- and who have made an appointment can get a vaccine.
Yet at Manhattan’s 24/7 vaccine site, at 125 Worth Street, the majority of the people getting vaccinated around the 9 and 10 p.m. hours Thursday said they did not have appointments but were otherwise eligible by state standards.
In an emailed statement, Patrick Gallahue, a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Health, said that the city’s policy required all vaccine recipients to have appointments.
“In some rare instances, to ensure any excess vaccine is not wasted at the end of the day or that vacancies are used, we have been able to find eligible individuals to slot into that vacancy by making an appointment onsite right then,” Gallahue wrote. “But do not plan on this – make an appointment, or you may leave disappointed.”
People waiting on line echoed the widespread confusion among New Yorkers about exactly how to secure a vaccine in a timely fashion -- and where they can go for it. They reported frustration with the city’s sign-up process and said they had problems securing appointments via both government websites and hotlines.
“We were sitting for two days on the computer,” said Sara Yuzary, 73. “On the phone, no one is answering.”
Yuzary said she and her husband came from Sheepshead Bay, in South Brooklyn, for a walk-in. Their nephew, who accompanied them, said he had told them about the walk-ins after taking his mother to the Worth Street site Wednesday for a vaccine, where he saw people without appointments being let in.
“It’s lifesaving,” Yuzary said. “It’s the first time in 10 months we are getting out of the car to another place.”
Others came to the Worth Street site from Flushing, Queens, and other parts of Brooklyn, because they were concerned about long lines at the sites in their own boroughs.
Many had heard via word of mouth that the site was accepting walk-in appointments, which was not noted on any city or state website.
People with appointments reported getting in and out of the building in a half-hour, while those without appointments departed about two hours after first arriving.
Not everyone who showed up was able to get a vaccine. One woman and her parents, coming from Chinatown, said they had heard from a friend that someone who was just 60 years old -- five shy of the eligibility threshold -- had received a vaccine at the Worth Street site on Wednesday. One of the line managers told the parents, both 64 years old, they would have to leave.
A worker for the city sanitation department, whose employees have not been included in the eligibility lists so far, was also turned away. On Tuesday, the head of Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association, the department’s union, said they are “negotiating with the state and city” to have sanitation workers made eligible.
At the Worth Street site, workers managing the intake of vaccine recipients came out every five minutes, clipboard in hand, to manage social distancing on the line and check for people with appointments, crossing their names off a long list. One line manager paused rushing in and out of the entrance to joke with a brother and sister waiting on the line about how they were "socially distancing" from one another.
People who arrived inside the building stepped through a metal detector, then waited in two more lines: one to determine eligibility and one to receive the shot.
They were then monitored for 15 minutes to check for allergic reactions, which have been exceedingly rare with the vaccines available in the U.S., and scheduled their second doses, before leaving.
“The people are really very kind, and they explain where to go,” said Carter Crawford, whose husband noted she was in the ‘over 75’ category. “I highly recommend it. We showed up at the door, and they said, ‘Come right in, sit right here.’”
“It’s the happiest day of my life in a long time,” Crawford said.
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Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story said Gov. Cuomo said the city had not used 60% of its supply. Cuomo said the city had only used 60% of its supply.
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This story includes reporting from Alyssa Paolicelli.