(Bloomberg) -- New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city is rescheduling 23,000 vaccine appointments because of a supply shortage.
The mayor cited Moderna Inc. specifically, saying the drug manufacturer and its distributor told the city the 103,000 doses it was expected to receive yesterday will be delayed by a number of days. About half of that supply was intended to be given as second doses.
“We have an immediate and profound problem,” de Blasio said in a Wednesday briefing.
New York still plans to hit its goal of 1 million vaccinations by the end of the month. “We can do it if we get the vaccine,” de Blasio said.
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De Blasio called upon the Biden administration in Washington to lift restrictions on using second doses of coronavirus vaccines and expanding the supply “in a huge way.”
As for this week, New Yorkers who were set to get their second doses will continue to keep their appointments.
“People will get their second doses,” said Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi.
He said the appointments that are being rescheduled for tomorrow and Friday are for first-dose appointments and will be scheduled in the coming week.
The warnings about dwindling supplies stand in contrast to city data that says about half of New York City’s stock remains unused. New York has administered 494,596 out of 940,825 doses delivered, according to its immunization registry. De Blasio has attributed the discrepancy to reporting delays and a lag in administering doses reserved for nursing home facilities by a program run by the federal government.
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