.@NYGovCuomo : "If the UK spread catches on in NY, hospitalization rate goes up, hospital staff gets sick - then we have a real problem. Then we're at shutdown again."

The problem with capacity now is staff shortage, he says. "We have beds, we have equipment." Primarily nurses.

Cuomo: Very worried about UK strain. Still just 1 case confirmed in NY, but believe we have more. Notes spread in UK only took about 3 weeks.

Says this concern + staff shortages at hospitals is why such a push for faster vaccination of health-care workers.

Cuomo: "We have seen a dramatic increase" in performance of vaccinations.

Were doing 10k per day for first several wks

On Monday, went to 30k

Tuesday, a little over 30k

Wednesday, went to 50k

And today going to be in excess of 50k

"That's 5 times the rate they were doing."

Cuomo: Refusal rate varies. Drs taking vaccine at much higher rate. Anecdotal, but would expect to see numbers around 80% for drs. "And drs know best."

Nurses, there's a variation. Would expect to see that 70-80%. 70 is the minimum threshold for viability of vaccination program.

Cuomo: 2M health-care workers in state. Only have 900k doses for the 2M.

"Any hospital that hits their refusal rate, fine, tell me, we'll reallocate it - bc overall we don't have enough dosages for half the population of health-care workers."