New York and several other Northeastern states are forging a regional public health coalition to issue vaccine recommendations and coordinate public health efforts in a rebuke to the Trump administration’s shifts on health policy, according to two New York officials.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to announce New York’s involvement in the initiative on Thursday morning. The effort is similar to the West Coast Health Alliance — a bloc of four Democratic-controlled Western states, including California — that issued its own vaccine guidance this week.
Both the Western and Northeastern regional coalitions reflect efforts to shore up public health efforts and give a government stamp of approval to vaccines at a time when federal public health institutions are in retreat.
Like the Western initiative, this one, known as the Northeast Public Health Collaborative, appears to be particularly focused on encouraging widespread vaccination as the federal health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is waging a broad campaign against vaccines. In recent weeks, the federal government has canceled major contracts for vaccine research and development and imposed restrictions that limit access to updated versions of the Covid vaccine. The creation of the coalition was described by public health officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity before an official announcement.
State officials are expected to issue recommendations for who should receive the most recent coronavirus vaccines: infants and toddlers between 6 and 23 months old and adults older than 19. The recommendations state that healthy children older than 2 years and adolescents may be vaccinated against the coronavirus, and that any children with underlying health conditions should be vaccinated.
“Vaccines save lives, and this guidance ensures every New Yorker from our youngest children to those at highest risk has safe, reliable access to the Covid vaccine,” the New York State health commissioner, Dr. James V. McDonald, said.
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