New York will open up COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to those with certain underlying conditions beginning Feb. 15, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday.
Hospitals across the Empire State have been getting vaccine allocations sent to them directly since the vaccine efforts started in mid-December to get their employees jabbed.
After next week, all of those unused allocations will go to local health departments to inoculate New Yorkers with comorbidities, Cuomo explained during an Albany press briefing.
“They will start to reallocate the doses that were set aside for the hospital workers and we will give that allocation to the local health departments to give to people with comorbidities and that will start Feb. 15,” Cuomo said.
Cuomo noted that “94 percent of people who die with COVID are people with comorbidities or people with other underlying conditions.”
A pharmacist prepares COVID-19 vaccine doses at a pop-up site in the Bronx. Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesCuomo said the state was working with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to decide exactly which underlying conditions will make someone eligible to get the coveted vaccine.
Hours after the briefing, Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, put out the list of comorbidities for eligibility via Twitter.
That list includes:
- Cancer (current or in remission, including 9/11-related cancers)
- Chronic kidney disease
- Pulmonary disease, including but not limited to, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), asthma (moderate-to-severe), pulmonary fibrosis, cystic fibrosis and 9/11-related pulmonary diseases
- Intellectual and developmental disabilities including Down syndrome
- Heart conditions, including but not limited to heart failure, coronary artery disease, cardiomyopathies, or hypertension (high blood pressure)
- Immunocompromised state (weakened immune system) including but not limited to solid organ transplant or from blood or bone marrow transplant, immune deficiencies, HIV, use of corticosteroids, use of other immune weakening medicines, or other causes
- Severe obesity (BMI > or = 40 kg/m2), obesity (body mass index [BMI] of 30 kg/m2 or higher but < 40 kg/m2)
- Pregnancy
- Sickle cell disease or Thalassemia
- Type 1 or 2 diabetes mellitus
- Cerebrovascular disease (affects blood vessels and blood supply to the brain)
- Neurological conditions including but not limited to Alzheimer’s disease or dementia
- Liver disease
People line up outside Yankee Stadium for COVID-19 vaccinations on February 5, 2021. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/DeRosa said in the tweet that the list “is subject to change as additional scientific evidence is published & as NYS obtains and analyzes additional state specific data.”
