NY Expands Vaccine Eligibility to 65 and Older

New York will now make COVID-19 vaccinations available to people age 65 and older, based on new federal guidelines. Doctors are concerned that releasing reserves now will mean there won't be enough supply to administer that second dose. Some people who also became eligible this week - including area teachers and seniors over age 75 - say they have been unable to get through phone lines and websites to make appointments. The federal announcement increases expectations, yet it's unclear whether this will also increase the supply enough to meet those expectations. Governor Andrew Cuomo said New York is allotted 300,000 doses per week. At this rate it will take 23 weeks before the entire group receives the first does. "That has not changed. The federal government didn't give us additional allocation," he said in a phone interview. "At 300,000 per week, how do you effectively serve seven million people?" Both Moderna and Pfizer say they anticipate providing hundreds of millions of doses to the federal government in order to meet the supply needs for the second dose. Pfizer says it will have the double vaccine dose for 100 million Americans by July.