NEW YORK RESTAURANT WORKERS TO START GETTING VACCINES

Restaurant workers in New York can start being vaccinated immediately against COVID-19 if their local authorities have the serum available, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday in a rare about-face.  

The governor essentially shifted the call of when to have the workers roll up their sleeves to local officials, instead of managing the distribution of limited quantities down to the city or county level from Albany. According to Cuomo’s original schedule, employees of the state’s restaurants would not be eligible to receive inoculations until sometime in March at the earliest.

The governor has been under pressure to give the workers the same priority that was assigned to first-responders, teachers and persons aged 65 or older, a group collectively classified under Cuomo’s plan as 1B. Everyone in that classification is now eligible to get the shots.

Proponents of moving restaurant workers up the line have argued that the employees are required as essential workers to report for duty despite the very real danger of contracting COVID-19. Yet they’re far behind other essential workers in the queue for inoculations.    

Cuomo had refused to bend, saying that shifting vaccines to such a large pool of workers would deny the protection to groups with a higher risk or vulnerability.  

He drew fire yesterday by dismissing the call for inoculating foodservice workers as “cheap and insincere,” without any explanation.

Cuomo reversed himself Tuesday after learning that the federal government would channel more supplies of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to the state. The move immediately drew praise from the industry.