New York’s 2 Largest Mass Vaccination Sites to Date Open Wednesday in Brooklyn,
What to Know
- New York’s two largest state vaccination sites to date open Wednesday in Brooklyn and Queens and target historically underserved communities; they’re part of a new federal program
- That program provides special dose allocation to ensure continued supply and aims to encourage vaccination in communities of color and lower-income communities that have lower vaccination rates
- Racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities have pervaded the vaccination rollout at the local, state and federal levels
New York’s two largest vaccination sites to date, both run jointly by FEMA and the state, opened Wednesday in Brooklyn and Queens, the first in a series of launches under a new federal program targeting historically underserved communities.
Both sites — at Brooklyn’s Medgar Evers College and Queens’ York College — have the capacity to each inoculate up to 3,000 people a day for at least an initial eight-week period. They receive a special allocation of federal vaccine doses to ensure continued supply as states continue to face lower-than-desired supply in what New York officials describe as a race against time and more contagious variants.
They’ll operate seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and be staffed jointly by state and federal officials. The National Guard will assist with operations as well. Appointments opened up for scheduling Saturday for people in dozens of hard-hit ZIP codes with low vaccination rates. They’ll be made available to all eligible residents in each site’s county or specified target region next week.
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Eligible New Yorkers can schedule appointments for the Brooklyn and Queens sites via the state’s ‘Am I Eligible’ website or by calling its COVID-19 Vaccination Hotline at 1-833-NYS-4-VAX (1-833-697-4829). Appointments can now be made on site at the Brooklyn and Queens locations that opened Wednesday.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo toured the Medgar Evers site earlier this week and visited the York College on Wednesday as it opened.
In an effort to make access to the new sites easier for these so-called “socially vulnerable” communities, Cuomo said the MTA will enhance bus service from NYCHA and community centers to the new state-FEMA sites as part of a pilot program. The state will also partner with faith leaders in Brooklyn and Queens for a vaccination drive aimed at encouraging people to sign up for appointments.
Four more sites under that program will open upstate March 3 in Buffalo, Yonkers, Rochester and Albany. Those will each vaccinate 1,000 people a day.
Almost all first doses that had been scheduled to arrive in New York last week were delayed by weather, but the restock started to slowly trickle in on Monday, City Hall said. New Jersey has faced similar shortages: Officials in Essex County canceled first dose appointments for Sunday and Monday while those in Monmouth County canceled Monday appointments for the fifth straight day. NBC 4 has team coverage.
“The state is committed to vaccinating all New Yorkers, and that means making a concerted effort to reach those communities which have been underserved by the traditional health care system,” Cuomo said in a statement ahead of the openings. “If we are to truly be successful in winning this war once and for all, we need to make sure shots are going into arms everywhere, regardless of race, background or income, and these sites are critical components of that effort.”
Racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities have pervaded the vaccination rollout at the local, state and federal levels. In New York, where 2.4 million people have received at least one dose (12.3 percent of the population), vaccination rates have been higher for whites in every single one of the 10 regions compared with their percentage of the eligible population in each region, the latest data shows.
New York state has not published demographic data online for those who have completed the full vaccination series. More than 1.3 million New Yorkers have done that to date, reflecting less than 7 percent of the state’s population.
New York City doesn’t provide that data separately either. The city has administered more than 1.5 million total doses to date, including nearly 900,000 first doses and more than a half-million second doses. Those numbers include people who don’t live in New York City but are eligible for vaccination in the five boroughs because of work. Among all New York City residents who have received at least one dose, just 12 percent are Black and 16 percent are Latino.
According to the latest federal population data, those racial groups comprise 24 percent and 29 percent of the city’s population. The city has launched a number of vaccine hubs targeting communities of color and lower-income communities in recent weeks, including the site at Yankee Stadium, which is run jointly with the…
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