New York City Will Vaccinate a Million Residents in January, de Blasio Vows

Mayor Bill de Blasio acknowledged the city’s vaccination rollout has been far to slow on Wednesday, and promised the city would speed up the process.

“It is so clear, there is no reason for anything but urgency. We’re nowhere near where we need go be,” said de Blasio at his press conference on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, during a media interview with CNN, de Blasio admitted that while the city has received 368,000 vaccine doses, only 88,000 have been vaccinated.

The need for a speed vaccination system has only grown more urgent as a new and significantly more infectious mutation of the coronavirus, found in the U.K., has been discovered in the U.S.

“[We’ve] set a goal for the month of January, we’re going to vaccinate a million New Yorkers in the month of January,” de Blasio said. “Now, we’re going to need the help of the federal government, the State government, the manufacturers of the vaccine, we need everyone to pull together.”

The process would entail using community clinics, public schools, and pop-sites for vaccinations.

“We need the federal government to speed up. We need the manufacturers to do what they need to do. Really, the vaccines need to go where they can be used,” de Blasio stressed. “This [vaccination process] is not moving the way it needs to in the United States of America. New York City is going to show that we can jumpstart this and vaccinate people at a record pace. And we want to see the whole country be a part of this, because we need to go faster to fight back the coronavirus if we want to recover.”

He urged the federal government to utilize the Defense Production Act to encourage manufacturers to mass produce vaccines, their vials, and whatever supplies are necessary to administer the shot.

“Every single time we vaccinate someone, we are one step closer to making the coronavirus a thing of the past in terms of the horrible grip it has on society,” de Blasio said.

___

smarcus@hamodia.com