Cuomo gives New York communities flexibility to add restaurant workers to essential worker vaccine list

(The Center Square) – Thanks to a commitment from the federal government to ship more vials of the COVID-19 vaccines, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday he will give local communities the discretion to pick the populations that will be able to receive the dosages.

That comes a day after he pushed back against a proposal to add restaurant workers to the priority list, saying that adding groups would necessitate the removal of others from the list.

“Let’s be clear, I said yesterday, I think everybody should get the vaccine,” the governor said. “It’s a practical problem of supply and demand. … Certainly, it becomes a question of allocation and prioritization.”

Cuomo said the Biden administration, which last week pledged to boost weekly shipments by 16 percent, came back and said it will be able to deliver even more.

The state has been receiving between 250,000 and 300,000 vaccine doses per week. Cuomo said local governments will get about 20 percent more than they have in recent weeks.

Among the populations communities can consider include clients and staff at facilities for the developmentally disabled, taxi and Uber drivers as well as restaurant workers.

“We have statewide priorities which are set by the federal government, but if a local government is now getting more and they believe in their local circumstance, they want to prioritize … they have that flexibility,” he said.

The updated vaccination policy comes as Cuomo announced last week that New York City restaurants can reopen indoor dining at 25 percent capacity starting on Valentine’s Day. That’s contingent on key COVID-19 metrics staying on their downhill trend.

In other parts of the state, restaurants have been able to stay open at 50 percent capacity.

New York City restaurant owners have been pushing to reopen, but at the same time, some workers expressed reservations about going back to work in areas where people would be shedding their masks indoors for extended periods of time.

It was a cause New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio championed earlier on Tuesday.

“These are folks who serve us, who we depend on, who in the course of one of their shifts will be in contact with multiple people,” he said. “We need to protect them.”

The mayor welcomed Cuomo’s announcement, saying it will help workers who face greater risk.

The New York City Hospitality Alliance, which last week criticized Cuomo’s decision to keep its restaurants at a lower capacity than others across the state, thanked the governor Tuesday for his decision. In addition, they offered to provide education and outreach to restaurant workers regarding the vaccine and the inoculation sites.

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