Gov. Kathy Hochul received her latest COVID-19 vaccine in Hell’s Kitchen on Tuesday while avowing to keep New Yorkers protected from the potentially deadly infection even as the federal government seeks to make the inoculation harder to obtain.
Hochul said on Sept. 16 that she would extend a standing executive order that allows New Yorkers to obtain the latest COVID-19 vaccine regardless of health condition. First issued on Sept. 5, the order is an end-around from new restrictions on the vaccine from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, now under the direction of Dr. Terry Kennedy and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., both of whom are vaccine skeptics.
“Dr. Terry Kennedy and the FDA, took away the rights of pharmacists to provide lifesaving vaccinations like COVID shots to anyone under the age of 65, or who didn’t have preexisting conditions,” Hochul said. “So basically saying that if you don’t have a prescription, parents can’t get shots for their children; that adults who want to protect themselves had that right taken away.”
Hochul said that wouldn’t fly in New York state, where “we actually believe in science.”
“We believe in preventative measures like shots, and we will not bow down to what the federal government is trying to impose on us,” the governor added.
During Tuesday’s visit to Echo Pharmacy, Hochul received the COVID-19 shot from pharmacist Danny Chang, who thanked her “for standing with the health care community.”
Hochul’s order ensures that pharmacists can still administer the COVID-19 vaccine and other lifesaving vaccines to anyone under the age of 65, or who lacks preexisting conditions, without requiring a prescription in advance.
Since becoming public in early 2021 after the deadly pandemic of the year prior, the COVID-19 vaccine has been readily available to Americans at both chain and mom-and-pop pharmacies, usually at no cost to insured patients. The vaccine helped reduce the severity of COVID symptoms and enabled the easing of capacity and societal restrictions imposed in 2020 to stop the spread of deadly infection.
Yet vaccine skeptics such as Secretary Kennedy have long questioned the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine and other shots for childhood illnesses such as polio and measles. The skepticism, largely spread through social media misinformation, has often been based on scientifically disproven arguments linking vaccinations to autism or medical problems.
Hochul said she would seek state legislation to make COVID vaccines available statewide without a prescription when the Legislature reconvenes in January, but she promised to renew her executive order until a law reaches her desk.
