MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th December, 2020) New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Monday that he was going to sign an executive order to penalize healthcare providers for violating COVID-19 vaccination prioritization protocols.
"Anyone who engages in fraud is going to be held accountable. The Executive Order I'm going to sign today says a provider could be fined up to $1 million and revocation of all State licenses which frankly may be more of a deterrent than the $1 million and that will apply to a provider, a doctor, a nurse, a pharmacist, any licensed health care professional," Cuomo said.
In addition, the certification of vaccine recipients will become mandatory as part of New York State's immunization campaign.
The decision to penalize healthcare providers comes a day after Health Commissioner Howard Zucker said that there had been an investigation launched into the ParCare Community Health Network's alleged violation of state guidelines by fraudulently obtaining and distributing a COVID-19 vaccine.
In the meantime, the US Department of Treasury's bureau of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, FinCEN, has issued a notice to "alert financial institutions about the potential for fraud, ransomware attacks, or similar types of criminal activity related to COVID-19 vaccines and their distribution."
According to FinCEN, the US food and Drug Administration (FDA) has so far issued two emergency use authorizations for COVID-19 vaccines in the country. Earlier this month, the FDA's Vaccine Advisory Committee recommended Moderna's coronavirus vaccine candidate for emergency use authorization. The Moderna vaccine is the second coronavirus vaccine greenlighted by the advisory committee, after the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
