Governor Andrew Cuomo wants hospitals to step up and administer vaccines faster. In fact, during Monday’s COVID briefing, the governor says hospitals who do not distribute all of their doses by the end of this week could face fines.
“Any provider that does not use the vaccine could be fined up to $100,000,” Gov. Cuomo said. “Going forward, they have to use the allocation within 7 days.”
In addition to a fine, Cuomo adds that those hospitals would also be removed from future vaccine distributions and their allotments will go elsewhere.
“If there are hospitals that are better at doing that, then they should be doing that,” he said. “If you can’t do that within 7 days, just raise your hand and say ‘I can’t do this’ and we’ll go to other hospitals.”
About half of nursing home residents in the Empire State have received the first dose- Cuomo says reaching 100% will be priority the next 2 weeks. We did reach out to c-v-p-h in Plattsburgh to see how this may impact vaccine distribution at hospitals in the North Country. Hospital leaders plan to address the announcement as well as their procedures for allocation during a press briefing Tuesday.
