Spike Lee on Friday morning paid a surprise visit to Yankee Stadium on opening day – New York City’s newest COVID-19 vaccination mega-site.
The director of “Do the Right Thing” – who was there for a shoot, not a vaccine – looked unpretentious in a gray Yankees jacket, khaki pants and baseball cap while talking to people in line to throw the first punch.
The Bronx Bombers mecca first opened on Friday as mega-vaccination sites after weeks of delays due to vaccine shortages.
The neighborhood recorded one of the highest rates of positivity for coronavirus. Only residents of the Bronx can be vaccinated there.
Several hundred people lined up for their first injection of the two-dose vaccine.
Authorities said they had administered jabs to a few hundred people before mid-morning at the stadium, where appointments are fully scheduled for at least the next five days.
As of Thursday, there were still thousands of time slots open for appointments, said councilman Mark Levine, while questioning whether the Big Apple carried out enough disclosure to spark interest in the photos.
Two lines extended from Gate 4, one was for people with commitments and the other for those who didn’t.
“I’ve been trying in the past few months to make an appointment,” Ralph Davis, a 69-year-old semi-retired sanitation worker, told the Post at 8:15 am, saying he heard about the site on the “Michael Kay Show. “
“I just called, got the appointment instantly,” he added.
Two restaurant employees, Jennifer Andon, 27, and her father, Ruben, 50, were also waiting in line after signing up on Somos Vaccinations.
“My dad had an appointment at 8:10, he just needed to be more organized, especially in temperatures like these,” said Andon.
“It is winter, it is disorganized, but we are more than grateful to have the vaccine anyway. I received the notification through the Citizen app. I literally went immediately, saw the link, made the appointment, ”she said.
“I helped my neighbors and aunts to make their appointments too, because we are all residents of the Bronx,” added Andon.
Godwin Vorgbedor, a 58-year-old health worker, waited in line without an appointment.
“I heard about it on TV two days ago and tried several times to register on the computer. He keeps rejecting me, and I’m like, ‘I can’t go on, let me in and see,’ ”he said after waiting for 45 minutes.
“It is not moving. They just tell us to get away. I am ready to pay the price, just to make sure that I can make it, ”added Vorgbedor.
Dr. Ramon Tallaj, founder of SOMOS Community Care, a network of nearly 2,500 providers in the Bronx, Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn, said that “almost all appointments” by next week are filled.
“I could see, it’s raining, look at the people. They are right here. They don’t want to go anywhere, they want to get the vaccine, ”said Tallaj.
A city spokeswoman said on Thursday that a publicity effort is underway in the Bronx to spread the word and help facilitate applications.
The city has already been criticized for a complicated online application process for its own vaccination centers that confused elderly people, and admitted that it needs to do more to encourage minority communities to get their vaccines.