Teachers, police officers, firefighters, public transit and safety workers and people age 75 or older can get their first vaccine doses in New York starting Monday following a week-long squabble between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio over when eligible categories could expand to Phase 1B.
That phase is New York’s largest vaccination group, comprised of roughly 3.2 million people, about 1.4 million of whom are people 75 years old and up. De Blasio had pushed to expand eligibility to that older age group last week, as New York City issued a new warning urging them to avoid nonessential activities outside of the home in the wake of alarming recent COVID data for that group. Education workers make up the second-largest group in Phase 1B at 870,000.
They join more than 2.1 million healthcare workers and nursing home residents in group 1A who started getting their initial doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine last month. Hundreds of thousands of initial doses have been issued across New York state since early December. In New York City, nearly 20,000 have received their second shots as of Monday as well.
California Turns Stadiums Into COVID-19 Vaccination Centers
California is transforming baseball stadiums, fairgrounds, and even a Disneyland Resort parking lot into mass vaccination sites as the coronavirus surge overwhelms hospitals and sets a deadly new record in the state.California’s COVID-19 death toll reached 30,000 on Monday, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
It took six months for the nation’s most populous state to reach 10,000 deaths but barely a month to jump from 20,000 to 30,000 deaths. California ranks third nationally for COVID-19-related deaths, behind Texas and New York, which is No. 1 with nearly 40,000. Public health officials have estimated about 12% of those who catch the virus will require hospital care, usually several weeks after infection as they get sicker.