An employee of the Emergency Medical Services Office (FDNY EMS) of the New York City Fire Department receives a Modern COVID-19 vaccine amid the coronavirus disease pandemic (COVID-19) in the district of Manhattan of New York City, New York, USA, December 23, 2020.
Carlo Allegri | Reuters
New York City officials want to inoculate one million residents against Covid-19 in January, saying the federal government and drug manufacturers must speed up vaccine production and distribution.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday that the city will use schools, emerging clinics and “whatever it takes” to reach a million people during the month.
“We know that New York City can vaccinate a million people in January and that it really sets this in motion,” Blasio told CNN. “Every time we vaccinate someone, we’re one step closer to turning the coronavirus into a thing of the past in terms of the horrible control it has over society.”
JoIt is an ambitious target given that the city has received only 390,425 doses of vaccine and has been able to administer only about 78,000 shots, according to city data.
“This thing isn’t moving properly in the United States,” the mayor said. “New York City will show we can start this and vaccinate people at a record pace. And we want the whole country to be a part of it because we need to go faster to fight the coronavirus if I want to recover.”
The U.S. government has fallen far short of its initial goal of administering at least 20 million vaccines against Covid before the end of the year, which federal officials have admitted is disappointing. The United States has distributed 12.4 million doses of vaccine to date and inoculated only 2.8 million people with the first of the two-shot vaccine regimen from Pfizer or Moderna, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. U.S. officials say the data is delayed between 72 and 96 hours due to notification of delays at the state and local level. Still, it remains a fraction of the Trump administration’s original goal.
“We agree that this number is lower than we expected,” Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser on the administration’s Operation Warp Speed vaccination program, told reporters on Wednesday. “We know it should be better and we’re working hard to improve it.”
De Blasio’s statement comes when health officials in Colorado and California have detected a new strain of coronavirus in a handful of cases in those states. The new variant, which de Blasio said has not yet been found in New York City, was first identified in the UK and appears to be much more contagious.
It also comes as the city prepares for its annual New Year’s Eve festivities, albeit without the usual crowds. Only a few hundred people, instead of the usual thousands, will be in Times Square wearing masks and with an invitation only for the ball to fall at midnight on foot in 2021. De Blasio said the only thing that unites all Americans in this divided country the year is “we want to get rid of the hell of 2020.”