Call it vax on the beach!
The city will roll out a fleet of mobile COVID-19 vaccine buses to beaches and popular parks starting this Memorial Day weekend, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday.
“This is an example of bringing the vaccine to the people and making it easier than ever,” de Blasio said at his May 25 daily press briefing. “We’re going to combine the joy of summer and the beaches reopening with the vaccination effort.”
New Yorkers will be able to get their shot while enjoying the unofficial start of summer as the city beaches open Saturday as well as some other gathering hotspots:
- Coney Island
- Brighton Beach
- Rockaways
- Orchard Beach
- Brooklyn Bridge Park
- Central Park
- Flushing Meadows Corona Park
- Prospect Park
- Governors Island
The city is poised to pass the 8 million threshold for vaccines administered Tuesday, with 7,999,257 shots in arms as of the morning, hizzoner said.
“Talk about the need for us all to heal and move forward, here’s an example of it in real time,” the mayor said. “This vaccination effort involved tens of thousands of people helping their fellow New Yorkers from all over the city, all walks of life, all neighborhoods.”
The latest indicators as of May 23 show a COVID-19 positivity rate for the city of 1.1%, with a seven-day average of 411 new reported cases per day and a hospitalization rate of 0.79 per 100,000.
“We’re on the verge of the summer, it’s a summer we deserve after everything we’ve been through,” said de Blasio. “It will be the summer of New York City, it will be extraordinary.”
