New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Sunday that the vaccination of vaccines that will take place in the city on Monday will be postponed due to an impending winter storm that is expected to pour up to 16 inches of snow in the region.
At a news conference on Sunday, Mr. De Blasio said he does not want older New Yorkers to be on the road to vaccine appointments, and warns of incoming blizzard-like conditions with gusts of wind. Winter storm warnings were in place Sunday for much of the eastern United States, affecting major metropolitan areas from Washington to Boston.
According to a statement, there is an appointment this week for vaccines at several locations – the Javits Center in Manhattan, the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, a driveway at Jones Beach on Long Island, SUNY Stony Brook and the Westchester County Center. of Melissa DeRosa, a top assistant to Governor Andrew Cuomo. “We ask all New Yorkers to monitor the weather and stay off the roads tomorrow so that our crew and first responders can do their job safely,” she said.
Personal learning at schools in New York City will also be closed Monday.
The storm will temporarily derail an explosion of vaccines in New York that is plagued by insufficient supplies, buggy reporting systems and confusion over the state’s strict guidelines. In New York, the vaccine is available to residents 65 and older, as well as a wide variety of workers who are designated as “essential.”
About 800,000 doses have been administered in the city so far, Mr. De Blasio said.
The explosion of the vaccine has also been plagued by serious racial differences, with residents of Black and Latino receiving far fewer doses than white residents, according to Mr. De Blasio.
The city’s demographic data were incomplete, but the numbers so far have been striking: Of nearly 300,000 residents of the city who received one dose and whose race was recorded, about 48 percent were white, 15 percent Latino, 15 percent Asian and 11 percent black. Residents of Latino and Black were underrepresented: the city’s population is about 29 percent Latino and 24 percent black.
An effort to bring more vaccination kits to communities in Brooklyn and the Bronx in underserved states, including at churches and public housing sites, was postponed to storm this week as six pop-up sites in the two districts were rescheduled to Wednesday. Me de Rosa said.