Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday that shipments arriving this weekend in New York City have a surplus of COVID-19 vaccines.
Shipments to be delivered to the city last week were delayed by a winter storm that slipped through most of the US, and finally this week combined it with the city’s regular weekly vaccine allocation in Gotham.
During the city hall press briefing, de Blasio said, “We had a tough week last week due to the storm, but the vaccine supply was delayed, but now a lot has happened.” “We are going to blitz this week. This is going to be a very intense week. “
The city has been making overnight changes at vaccination sites at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, Bathgate Industrial Park in the Bronx, and Citi Field in Queens.
Additionally, de Blasio said, “We are doubling the number of appointments at some key sites in communities where we are focused on fighting inequality.”
Those sites include Teacher Preparation High School in Brooklyn and Martin Van Buren High School in Queens.
New vaccine pop-up sites will also take place this week at the First Corinthian Baptist Church in East Harlem and another in the Mill Basin, Brooklyn, De Blasio said.
As of Thursday morning, the Big Apple had about 189,600 first dose shots and about 237,500 second dose shots, according to city data.
More than 1.6 million shots of the vaccine have been administered in New York City since vaccination efforts began in mid-December.
The mayor also announced on Thursday that the city set up 10 pop-up vaccine clinics in churches from other faith-based organizations in the city. Al Sharpton has partnered with National Action Network Non-Profit and Healthy Life.
“People listen to the leaders of their faith,” De Blasio said. “So we’re going to bring more and more of the faith communities in the process as we move forward.”
Sharpton virtually attended the briefing from Harlem Hospital where he stated that he had just been given a coronovirus vaccine.
“We should ask science to follow and do that,” Sharpton said, “I’m saying here ‘I can’t take a shot.’
When de Blasio was asked why he got upset, Sharpton replied, “I personally took the shot because I feel two things: One, that you have to make sure that your loved one and your surroundings are there.” People nearby are not putting themselves at risk. Being around you, you play some game of Russian Roulette … it’s not fair to your loved ones. “
“The other thing, is that I wanted to set an example,” Sharpton said. “I didn’t want to ask people to do something I wasn’t doing myself.”
Leave a Reply