NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Gov. Kathy Hochul is outlining her plan to start distributing booster shots to the general public once the federal government gives the green light.
Hochul said during a briefing Wednesday that the effort to get booster shots out will most likely be driven by local officials, unlike this past spring when vaccine distribution was tightly controlled by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
"Let's let the locals do what they want to do and do it best with guidance and requirements from the state," Hochul said. "All of them trained for this, the local health departments and the county administrators, the county executives, they do nothing but train for this year-round. They are ready for this."
The state can scale up mass vaccination sites again, if local officials want them.
"It's all about a partnership. They need me to set up a mass vax site back on Long Island or in Syracuse or in Buffalo I can do it in a couple of days if they can handle the resources locally then we'll let them do that," Hochul said.
The governor also assured that there is plenty of supply now, unlike last spring.
"This is a very good news dynamic right now. There will be plenty of vaccines available for people to get the booster shots," Hochul said. "We know that there's going to be a spike in the number of people who are now eligible who have hit that eight month mark and we need to be ready for that."
She said she has her eye on hospital capacity, with the delta variant of COVID-19 still raging.
"We stand ready to trigger whatever we have to do to activate more capacity," Hochul said. "We're not there yet, but it's something we're watching."
The state will make available $65 million to help support the booster shot efforts of local health departments.