NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – New York City had fewer than 1,000 first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine on hand Saturday after winter weather impacted shipments this week, officials said.
"Delayed shipments have put our entire vaccination effort at a standstill," Avery Cohen, a City Hall spokesperson, tweeted Saturday morning.
"As of this morning, New York City has fewer than 1,000 first doses remaining on-hand," Cohen wrote.
The city's online vaccine tracker also shows fewer than 1,000 first-dose vaccines on hand for New York City providers and facilities.
The city still has around 110,000 second-dose vaccines set aside, according to the data.
A total of 1,471,948 first and second doses have been administered in the city as of Saturday.
Mayor Bill de Blasio warned this week that the city was running low on first doses of the vaccine because of winter weather slamming the U.S.
The mayor said that the city had to put scheduling for tens of thousands of first-dose appointments on hold because of the shortage.
"We now think we might not get our new first doses for this week until Sunday," de Blasio said Thursday.
"Normally we're talking about doses we get on a Tuesday or Wednesday, we may not get (those) doses until Sunday," the mayor said. "So, unfortunately, more delays because of the storm, because the deliveries are not arriving. In fact, a vast majority of the resupply we expected for this week has not shipped from the factories yet."
The delays shouldn't impact appointments for second doses of the vaccine, city health commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi said Thursday.
Responding to the backlog in vaccines, Andy Slavitt, senior adviser on the White House COVID-19 Response Team, said Friday that 1.4 million doses were already in transit and that all backlogged doses should be delivered in the next week, many in the next several days.
