A heavy snowstorm covered much of the Northeast on Monday, severely hampering public health efforts to put vaccines into arms between Pennsylvania and New England.
Pasta vaccines at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, home of the Giants and Jets of professional football, were canceled, while Tests and vaccination sites performed in New York City they were also closed during the day.
In Pennsylvania, state-run test centers in Armstrong, Cumberland, Jefferson, Monroe and Wayne The counties were also closed due to snow. Vaccinations scheduled for Monday and Tuesday at the Allentown Fairgrounds have been postponed to Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.
“People stay off the road, it’s dangerous. Job 1 is now to protect people’s lives by dealing with snow first,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told MSNBC on Monday morning, predicting that up to 22 inches of snow can fall on America’s largest metropolitan area.
‘We really want to go back to vaccinations tomorrow morning, God willing. “
Meanwhile, in New England, doctors and nurses stationed at Fenway Park and Gillette Stadium, where the Red Sox baseball team and the Patriots soccer team play, advanced with vaccination efforts on Monday, despite 10cm predictions. to Boston.
“This is New England, we know that the weather sometimes makes things more difficult, but we have found a way,” according to a statement from CIC Health, which runs the mass vaccination sites at Gillette Stadium and Fenway Park.
About 500 people in Boston were expected to be injected into the shadow of Fenway’s Green Monster on Monday, with the hope of increasing to 1,200 a day after the snow stops and ends.
“So we thought we could do more, clearly, as the weather improves,” CIC director of marketing and experience, Rodrigo Martinez, told NBC News, as patients rolled up their sleeves and healthcare professionals – sitting in in front of Samuel Adams taps – they took vaccines out of vials for syringes.
Jacquie Van Haelst, 85, was scheduled to receive the vaccination on Tuesday at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, about 28 miles south of Boston, but feared that the continuing snowstorm would ruin those plans.
Then, when he learned from his niece that vacancies opened at Fenway on Monday, Van Haelst jumped out of the shower and ran for Lansdowne Street.
“I can’t tell you how excited I am,” she said after taking her Pfizer photo. “I’m thrilled. And then I’m ready to go home and play some tennis balls.”
But a mass vaccination center at the Reggie Lewis Center, a basketball and athletics venue in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, was closed and all appointments scheduled for Monday were postponed to February 8, city officials said.
Matteo Moschella and Kathryn Prociv contributed.