Citi field baseball stadium, the headquarters of the New York Mets Major League Baseball team on September 7, 2019 in Flushing, Queens, New York City.
Tim Clayton | Corbis Sport | Getty Images
New York will turn Citi Field into a “mega” vaccination site 24/7 by the end of January, in an effort to vaccinate thousands of residents daily, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Tuesday.
NYC Health and Hospitals will operate the site, home to the New York Mets, to provide between 5,000 and 7,000 photos a day, de Blasio said in a joint announcement with Mets owner Steve Cohen.
The announcement comes a day after Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said his city would set up a vaccination site at Dodger Stadium by the end of this week. The facility will be able to provide up to 12,000 photos a day, according to a statement from Garcetti’s office on Monday.
“This will help so many people get vaccinated,” de Blasio said during a press briefing. “We welcome all New Yorkers. We even welcome Yankee fans; there is no discrimination.”
New York Mayor has pushed Gov. Andrew Cuomo to expand the number of people who may be eligible for a coronavirus vaccine beyond priority health care workers. Cuomo accepted the city’s request last week and said people 75 and older, as well as key workers such as first responders, teachers, school staff and others from across the state, could be inoculated against the disease starting this year. week.
A person wearing a face mask is standing in front of a Covid-19 vaccination site at Bathgate Industrial Park in the Bronx District of New York, USA, on Monday, January 11, 2021.
David Delgado | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Starting Tuesday, the state will open vaccinations against Covid-19 to all people 65 years of age and older, as well as younger people who are immunocompromised, the Democratic governor said during a call with reporters Tuesday morning.
However, it seems that the problem so far has not been finding space to vaccinate people – it has provided the supply with doses. Cuomo said the new expanded federal guidelines apply to about 7 million people, but the state receives only about 300,000 doses a week.
“I urge patience, because unfortunately there are far more eligible New Yorkers than there are vaccines from the federal government,” Cuomo said in a tweet on Tuesday.
De Blasio said the city carried out 26,000 vaccinations on Monday. At this rate, the city will not have vaccines in less than two weeks, he said.
“We will need doses to maintain this kind of effort,” he said.