Citi Field Opens as Vaccination Site

Citi Field joined Yankee Stadium on Wednesday in offering COVID-19 vaccinations to eligible New Yorkers, but a lack of supply means that only a few hundred people a day will initially get shots there.

The Citi Field vaccination hub will be reserved for eligible Queens residents, along with priority appointments for TLC and food service workers from across the five boroughs.

“This site will be for the people of Queens, it will be for folks who take care of us and protect us and serve us as taxi drivers,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said after touring the vaccination site. “It’ll be the place for folks who work in food service. Working people, essential workers who have given their all to us during this crisis, and we need to be there for them.”

Yankee Stadium opened as a mass vaccination site last week, available only to Bronx residents who meet New York state’s criteria for vaccine eligibility.

De Blasio said he hopes to see more vaccine doses shifted to Citi Field so that the site can inoculate thousands of people a day, up from the just 250 who he said would be able to get shots on Wednesday.

“By next week we’ll be able to do 4,000 doses a week at this site,” said the mayor. ”But if we had enough vaccine supply, we will be doing 5,000 doses a day here at Citi Field.”