{"id":168557,"date":"2021-02-02T05:13:05","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T02:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/emails-show-top-cuomo-aide-dominates-states-vaccine-program\/"},"modified":"2021-02-02T05:13:05","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T02:13:05","slug":"emails-show-top-cuomo-aide-dominates-states-vaccine-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/emails-show-top-cuomo-aide-dominates-states-vaccine-program\/","title":{"rendered":"#Emails show top Cuomo aide dominates state’s vaccine program"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Emails show top Cuomo aide dominates state’s vaccine program<\/strong>”
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New York City health officials and their upstate counterparts are deeply frustrated with how top Cuomo aides have centralized and micromanaged vaccine distribution across the state.<\/p>\n

Cuomo brought back his former budget director Larry Schwartz \u2014 who sits on the MTA\u2019s board and serves as the governor\u2019s enforcer \u2014 to run the state\u2019s vaccine distribution program.<\/p>\n

Schwartz\u2019s role came into sharper focus Monday as it was revealed that at least nine senior state health officials have either resigned, retired or been reassigned amid the pandemic \u2014 and city and upstate officials expressed new worries that Cuomo\u2019s office had sidelined experts in favor of trusted political aides.<\/p>\n

Emails obtained by The Post show the hands-on roll that Schwartz has in the effort.<\/p>\n

State officials quietly issued guidance on January 12 that required local health departments to prioritize vaccinating frontline employees over providing shots to senior citizens, who would be referred to state-run megasites that Cuomo has launched with great fanfare.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, local pharmacies were instructed to give New Yorkers 65-years of age or older priority when awarding app<\/a>ointments for vaccinations.<\/p>\n

The guidance never laid out what state officials meant by priority \u2014 leaving city and upstate health officials confused by the new regulations, several told the Post.<\/p>\n

They argue that the new priority scheme would further complicate deliveries and potentially slow vaccine distribution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re doubling down on dumb. They\u2019re doubling down on such restrictive policies that it\u2019s creating conflict where it\u2019s not necessary,\u201d said Dutchess County executive Mark Molinaro, who challenged Cuomo in the 2018 governor\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

But that didn\u2019t stop Schwartz from threatening their eligibility to participate in the coronavirus vaccination program if they failed to comply with the unclear mandates.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease be reminded that the Memorandum of Understanding you signed to participate in the COVID-19 Vaccination Program legally requires your compliance with prioritization and other requirements,\u201d Schwartz wrote in an email sent January 15 and obtained by The Post.<\/p>\n

In another email, sent over the weekend of January 17, Schwartz instructed local health departments to not make appointments for vaccinations more than a week in advance because federal authorities were only providing a few days heads-up about coming coronavirus vaccine shipments.<\/p>\n

\u201cAppointments should not be pre-booked based on an assumption the weekly planning request will be met,\u201d Schwartz wrote in the email.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not book appointments until you hear from the state regarding your estimated allocation for the following week.\u201d<\/p>\n

He again reiterated to local authorities that they were \u201cattesting to the truthfulness of any information reported both the NYS Vaccine Tracker, and NYSIIS\/CIR, as applicable, under penalty of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuomo then codified both directive limiting future appointments and the priority program in an executive order issued on January 23 with little fanfare.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re administering 100% of our weekly doses and have operational capacity to do 100,000 shots a day\u2014the problem is lack of federal supply,\u201d a spokesman for the governor said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guidance creates clear channels to ensure the 7.1 million eligible New Yorkers have the opportunity to be vaccinated.\u00a0If\u00a0the policy was so restrictive\u00a0then why are counties, like the state, running out of doses? It makes no sense which is how you know the county executive is playing politics.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Emails show top Cuomo aide dominates state’s vaccine program” New York City health officials and their upstate counterparts are deeply frustrated with how top Cuomo aides have centralized and micromanaged vaccine distribution across the state. Cuomo brought back his former budget director Larry Schwartz \u2014 who sits on the MTA\u2019s board and serves as the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":168558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/02\/larry-schwartz.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[91587,71386,70430,1545,70344,82862,71427,91721,4953],"class_list":["post-168557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-2-1-21","tag-albany","tag-andrew-cuomo","tag-coronavirus","tag-coronavirus-in-ny","tag-covid-vaccine","tag-health-department","tag-marc-molinaro","tag-new-york-city"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}