NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday confirmed that New York City will expand COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to taxi drivers and restaurant workers, hours after Gov. Andrew Cuomo gave local governments the go-ahead to do so.
At a news briefing on Tuesday afternoon, Cuomo said the state would allow local governments to deem taxi drivers, restaurant workers and developmentally disabled facility residents eligible for vaccines under Phase 1B amid an increase in supply.
The Biden administration will be increasing the supply of vaccines going to states by 5 percent over the next three weeks — on top of the 16 percent increase the administration previously announced, the governor noted. Federal allocations to pharmacies, meanwhile, will increase by around 10 percent, he said.
De Blasio threw his support behind the plan in a tweet he sent out not long after Cuomo's briefing.
"Good! Like I said this morning, workers who are at risk should be eligible to be vaccinated," he wrote. "This will help us reach more New Yorkers while driving equity in our Vaccine for All campaign."
At his own news briefing Tuesday morning, de Blasio noted that restarting indoor dining in New York City on Feb. 14 would put restaurant workers "in enclosed places with people eating and drinking."
"We have to protect the people working in our restaurants," he said. "So now that the state has made this decision, it follows that we have to protect those workers, and they should be added to the 1B category."
New York state on Tuesday reported 146 new COVID-19-related fatalities, Cuomo said at his briefing.
Of the 150,199 COVID-19 test results that came back in the state on Monday, 8,215, or 5.47 percent, were positive, he said.
As of Monday, 8,067 New Yorkers were hospitalized with COVID-19, 1,503 of whom were in intensive care and 1,004 of whom were on ventilators.
