The New York City government has promised to have one million New Yorkers vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of January, a goal that seems far off since New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo seems to have dedicated all his efforts to prevent the vaccination process from happening efficiently and quickly.
The vaccination process started off poorly since Cuomo ordered an additional review of the vaccines, stating that he didn’t trust the certification process done by the Food & Drugs Administration. El American team could not find any previous studies in epidemiology or medicine in Governor Cuomo’s curriculum.
As the vaccine began to be distributed in New York State, Cuomo began to hinder the process by imposing an executive order ordering fines of more than $1 million to health care providers who do not follow the vaccination guidelines to the letter.
Following the establishment of severe restrictions on who can receive the vaccine, New York has had to literally throw away more than 300 doses that could not be used because they could not be given to groups of people other than those in the “1a” category.
Priority groups 1a and 1b are established by an advisory committee to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention: 1a are health care workers and nursing home residents, 1b are people over 75 years of age and essential front-line workers, and the list continues in the group prioritization line.
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams himself said it is a mistake to follow the guidance rigidly, and stated in an interview that: “If the demand isn’t in 1a, move to 1b and continue down. And if the demand is not there in that group, move those vaccines to another group.”
Following the scandal of more than 300 wasted doses, Cuomo has had to give in and abide by the recommendations that many health officials have made since the beginning, and that is not to interfere with the vaccination process.
Although Cuomo withdrew his threats against New York’s hospital network, the process also seems to have completely atrophied since the appointment was requested. Instead of relying on information from users of the New York State hospital network, a complicated registration system has been chosen that has left many users dissatisfied and a large number of appointments open.
A complicated enrollment process
The enrollment process for the coronavirus vaccine established by the New York City Health Department is a complete disaster. To get started, the department has chosen to create a site called the “NYC Covid-19 vaccine finder,” which in turn can redirect you to three other sites so that you can make an appointment: The NYC Health Department’s site for community clinics, the public health and hospital network site, and a third site for adapted vaccination centers. None of the three sites appear to coordinate with each other, nor do they transfer user information, which means that a person could request an appointment at all three different sites.
According to users, the online site is extremely confusing, as it involves a complicated six-step process for requesting an appointment and a strenuous 51-question questionnaire, as well as being full of bugs that make it even more difficult to interact with the already complicated procedure.
On Tuesday there were more than 200 slots to request an available appointment, indicating just how complicated the process can be. Despite the fact that there are numerous slots available, users reported up to three hours to register for an appointment for the application of the vaccine
The disorder is such that the line to request an appointment for vaccination refers people to go to the website, often discriminating against the older population that does not have a computer, as reported by Joseph Codispoti to the New York Post: “I called 311 yesterday, and they said, ‘make an appointment and go to the Army Terminal,’ I asked, ‘How do I make the appointment,’ they said, ‘online,’ which means you have to have a computer. Well, I don’t have a computer.”
New York City is currently recording more than 10,000 daily cases of coronavirus. If the state and city do not streamline and deregulate their now inefficient vaccination appointment processes, more death and suffering await both the state and the city of New York because of bureaucratic requirements.
Economist, writer and liberal. With a focus on finance, the war on drugs, history, and geopolitics // Economista, escritor y liberal. Con enfoque en finanzas, guerra contra las drogas, historia y geopolítica