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- Gov. Andrew Cuomo brought in outside help from big-name consulting firms for New York’s vaccine rollout.
- Cuomo enlisted Deloitte and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
- The governor is taking heat for sidelining preexisting county-level vaccine plans.
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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo enlisted top-tier consulting firms, Deloitte and the Boston Consulting Group, to help create a new COVID-19 vaccine rollout plan.
Cuomo’s efforts to sideline plans from county health departments that had been in place for years in favor of his own method were detailed in a New York Times investigation published on Monday.
Deloitte and BCG’s involvement is part of a broader use of consultants by the Cuomo administration – which is not uncommon across state-level politics – following McKinsey’s role in crafting a “Trump-proof” coronavirus reopening plan from the spring.
Cuomo also brought on a top private hospital network lobbyist to work inside the New York State Department of Health to help with the vaccine rollout, according to the Times. The lobbyist, Dennis Whalen, was previously the executive deputy commissioner of the department before he joined Northwell Health, the largest private hospital network in the Empire State.
Despite blowback from county leaders, the Cuomo administration has defended the move to make its own plan for vaccine distribution instead of using the ones in place at the county level, which were mandated by the health department in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks and the H1N1 outbreak in 2009.
In particular, Cuomo officials have emphasized at the governor's briefings that the cold temperatures needed for the vaccines were better suited for hospitals instead of underfunded local health departments.
Northwell Health also responded to the Times story, saying their role was not "nefarious."
"If you're asked to help, you help," Michael Dowling, the president of Northwell Health, told the Times. "There's nothing nefarious about this at all."