A New York Fire Department worker for Emergency Medical Services (FDNY EMS) receives a Modern COVID-19 vaccine amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in the Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York , USA, December 23, 2020.
Carlo Allegri | Reuters
New York City officials want to inoculate 1 million residents against Covid-19 in January, saying the federal government and drug manufacturers need to speed up the production and distribution of the vaccine.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday that the city will use schools, pop-up clinics and “whatever it takes” to reach 1 million people in a month.
“We know that New York City can vaccinate 1 million people in January and really put this thing at high speed,” de Blasio told CNN. “Each time we vaccinate someone, we are one step closer to making the coronavirus a thing of the past in terms of the terrible control it has over society.”
IIt is an ambitious goal considering that the city received only 390,425 doses of vaccine and was able to administer only about 78,000 vaccines, according to city data.
“This thing is not moving the way it should in the United States,” said the mayor. “New York City is going to show that we can give this a boost and vaccinate people at a record pace. And we want to see the whole country doing this because we need to go faster to fight the coronavirus if we want to recover.”
The United States government fell far short of its original goal of administering at least 20 million vaccines from Covid before the end of the year – something that federal officials admitted was disappointing. The United States has distributed 12.4 million doses of vaccines so far and has inoculated only 2.8 million people with the first two-dose vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. American officials say the data is delayed by 72 to 96 hours due to delays in state and local reports. Still, it is still a fraction of the original Trump administration target.
“We agree that this number is less than we expected,” Moncef Slaoui, chief aide to the government’s vaccine program, Operation Warp Speed, told reporters on Wednesday. “We know it should be better and we are working hard to make it better.”
De Blasio said the federal government needs to channel all of its resources towards mass production of the vaccine.
De Blasio’s speech comes as the city prepares for the 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 by invitation only to launch the ball at midnight for the 2021 kick. De Blasio said the only thing that unifies all Americans in this country divided year is “we want to get rid of Hell 2020.”