NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- New York state is on track to exhaust its current COVID-19 vaccine supply in two to three days, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday, while warning that shortages could become a weekly occurrence if supply doesn't increase.
New York has administered a total of 1,156,079 COVID-19 vaccine doses, with 145,780 doses remaining, Cuomo said at a news briefing Wednesday afternoon.
At its current administration rate — approximately 65,000 doses per day — the state will run out of vaccines within "two or three days," the governor said.
"We'll start to get the next week's allocation, but what's clear now is we're going to be going from week to week," he said. "And you will see a constant pattern of basically running out, waiting for the next week's allocation, and then starting up again."
New York has more than enough vaccine distributors, but not enough supply, he said.
The state's approximately 1,200 distributors should make sure they have enough doses before they schedule vaccination appointments, he noted.
"Don't schedule an appointment unless you know your allocation for the next week," he warned. "Otherwise, you have to cancel appointments, and it adds to the chaos, which is already inherent in the system."
"When the federal government decided to say 65 plus were open, and this was open, and this was open, but there was no supply, they created tremendous anxiety," he added. "Only Jesus, with loaves and fishes, could handle the situation that the federal government created, because they created such a demand, and then they never increased the supply."
Cuomo on Wednesday also reported 185 new COVID-19-related fatalities. As of Tuesday night, 9,273 New Yorkers were hospitalized with COVID-19, up by 37 from Monday, he said.
Of the 195,409 COVID-19 test results that came back in the state on Tuesday, 13,364, or 6.84 percent, were positive.
