Citi Field Baseball Stadium, home of the New York Mets Major League Baseball team on September 7, 2019 in Flushing, Queens, New York.
Tim Clayton | Corbis Sport | Getty Images
New York will turn Citi Field into a “mega” coronavirus vaccination site 24/7 in late January to try to vaccinate thousands of residents daily, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday.
NYC Health and Hospitals will operate the site, where the New York Mets are located, with the goal of giving between 5,000 and 7,000 shots a day, 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 establish a vaccination site at Dodger Stadium later this week. The facility could shoot up to 12,000 shots daily, according to a statement from Garcetti’s office on Monday.
“This will help so many people get vaccinated,” de Blasio told a news conference. “We welcome all New Yorkers. We even welcome Yankee fans; there is no discrimination.”
New York Mayor has been pushing Gov. Andrew Cuomo to expand the number of people who would be eligible for a coronavirus vaccine beyond top-priority health care workers. Cuomo responded to the city’s request last week and said people 75 and older, as well as essential workers such as lifeguards, teachers, school staff and others, from across the state could be inoculated against the disease from this week.
On Monday, January 11, 2021, a person wearing a protective mask is outside a vaccination site against Covid-19 in Bathgate Industrial Park, Bronx District, New York, USA.
David Delgado | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Starting Tuesday, the state will open vaccines against Covid-19 to anyone 65 years of age or older, as well as immunocompromised young people, the Democratic governor said during a call to reporters Tuesday morning.
It seems, however, that so far the problem has not been finding space to vaccinate people, but has been ensuring the supply of doses. Cuomo said the recently expanded federal guidelines apply to about 7 million people, but the state only receives about 300,000 doses a week.
“I demand patience, because unfortunately there are many more New Yorkers eligible than the federal government’s supply of vaccines,” Cuomo said in a tweet Tuesday.
De Blasio said the city made 26,000 shots Monday. At this rate, the city will run out of vaccines in less than two weeks, he said.
“We will need the doses to sustain that kind of effort,” he said.