Gov. Cuomo Threatens $100,000 Fine on Hospitals for Efficiency of Vaccine Distribution

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) this week threatened to fine hospitals up to $100,000 for the efficiency of vaccine distribution.

“I don’t want the vaccine in a fridge or a freezer — I want it in somebody’s arm,” Cuomo said.

“We need the public officials to manage those public hospitals,” he said.

“I need them to take personal responsibility for their hospitals,” Cuomo said of local leaders, including New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D). “This is a management issue of the hospitals. They have to move the vaccine, and they have to move the vaccine faster.”

The New York Post reported:

Providers must use the supplies they’ve thus far been allocated by week’s end or face fines of up to $100,000, Cuomo said.

And going forward, they must use all vaccines within seven days of receipt or face fines — and being cut off from future shipments of the vaccine.

Public and private hospitals statewide have used only about 46 percent of the coronavirus vaccines they have been provided, according to stats Cuomo cited Monday.

His warning coincides with a January 3 letter from the New York Department of Health, warning hospitals that “all vaccine in inventory prior to January 4, including prior set asides, must be fully administered to eligible priority populations by end of day on January 7, 2021.”

The letter read in part:

Week 4 (beginning January 4) of the State’s vaccination program significantly expands the Phase 1A eligibility, making more than 2 million individuals eligible to be vaccinated. Vaccine demand should far outpace the number of doses available in each community and as such each facility must fully utilize all vaccine within one week from when it is delivered, or remaining doses will be moved to a location that can administer the vaccine more efficiently. All vaccine in inventory prior to January 4, including prior set asides, must be fully administered to eligible priority populations by end of day on January 7, 2021. Any doses that are not administered by end of day on January 7 will be redistributed to another facility and future allocations to such facilities will be limited, and possibly eliminated. Notify NYSDOH by January 6 if you are not on pace to administer all doses by January 7.

Mayor de Blasio criticized Cuomo over his threats to fine hospitals in the rollout, dismissing it as “arrogance.”

“Does he think that our health care professionals are uninterested in vaccinating people? How about trusting the people who have been our heroes?” the Democrat mayor said, adding that the leader should instead “help them, support them, don’t fine them, don’t threaten them, respect them and help them.”

New York State has distributed 895,925 vaccines, with 273,713 New Yorkers receiving the first dose according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) January 4 data. Nationally, 15,418,500 doses of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been distributed, with 4,563,260 receiving the first dose.