NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Many New Yorkers are scrambling to get the COVID-19 vaccine after the Mount Sinai hospital system canceled all first dose appointments.
Eleanor Coufos, who works at an Upper West Side school, scheduled her vaccine appointment with Mount Sinai Morningside back in January for March.
On Monday, she got an email from the hospital informing her that her appointment had been canceled due to a supply shortage and a shift of vaccine from hospitals to government-run sites.
"They say in their email that they're just basically not getting anymore doses," Coufos told WCBS 880's Marla Diamond. "They seem to be giving the impression that the doses have been reallocated to the sort of official city and state sites."
She calls it "incredibly frustrating."
"I understand that there's a change in strategy, I would just express there would be better coordination and those appointments should've been transferred to another location," Coufos said.
"At this point, now that the system is open to group 1B, everything is beyond booked," Coufos added. "So all the people in group 1A, including many of my elderly neighbors who I helped, are now all the way back at the bottom of the list when they should have been at the front of the list."
She has asked the City Council and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer for help honoring the appointments at city sites so people, especially the elderly, don't have to repeat the arduous task of making another appointment online.
"I think there's a way to still fix this and a way to still rectify it," Coufos said.
A Mount Sinai administrator told The Gothamist that the fear is the vaccine shift is more than temporarily.
A Cuomo administration official insists Mount Sinai will get doses in the future, but admonished the hospital system for scheduling beyond its means.
This is the second time the hospital system had to cancel vaccine appointments due to lack of supply. The first time was back in mid-January.
Mount Sinai is still honoring second dose appointments.
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