Cuomo urges feds to guard undocumented immigrants in vaccine rollout

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is urging the federal authorities to assist underserved communities and defend undocumented immigrants because the administration begins to roll out plans to distribute a coronavirus vaccine. Cuomo and a coalition of teams wrote a letter to Well being and Human Companies Secretary Alex Azar calling for a “truthful and equal vaccination program” that reaches these communities. 

“The federal authorities’s present plan to vaccinate People neglects key priorities that we have to successfully distribute the vaccine to tens of millions of New Yorkers,” Cuomo mentioned in a statement. “We have to concentrate on Black, Brown, Asian and low-income communities which can be traditionally underserved by the healthcare establishments which can be key to the federal authorities’s plan.”

Cuomo mentioned the federal program requires states to gather and share private info for these taking the vaccine, which may very well be shared with federal businesses just like the Division of Homeland Safety and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This might dissuade undocumented immigrants from taking the vaccine, he argued.

The letter proposes a modified system that tracks vaccinated people however doesn’t reveal personal info similar to Social Safety numbers, passport numbers, or driver license numbers. The letter additionally calls for that the federal government should comply with maintain this private info personal and never share it with any non-health company.

“Clearly, a profitable program administering the vaccine is vital to nationwide well being. However for the vaccination program to achieve success, it will need to have the total participation of all of the American folks. It’s in everybody’s curiosity for all of us to work collectively to encourage our respective constituents to take part within the vaccination program,” the letter reads. “Additional, it’s definitely not within the nationwide curiosity for people to have legitimate considerations stopping such participation, and the undocumented neighborhood has particular and legitimate trigger for concern in offering pointless, irrelevant, and delicate info to federal businesses.”

Healthcare corporations Moderna Inc. and Pfizer have utilized to the Meals and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization of its coronavirus vaccine. In an interview with “CBS This Morning,” Azar mentioned the FDA has introduced an advisory committee assembly for December 10. If permitted for emergency use, Azar mentioned “we may very well be seeing each of those vaccines out and stepping into folks’s arms earlier than Christmas.”

As of December 1, the U.S. reported greater than 13 million instances of the virus nationwide, with over 266,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins College.