About 80% of New Yorkers have gotten at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine marking a “major milestone” in the battle against the pandemic.
The mayor revealed the updated vaccination stat during his almost weekly interview on WNYC´s “The Brian Lehrer Show” on Friday morning.
“This is a big deal and I hope New Yorkers appreciate that this is because New Yorkers came forward because we mounted the biggest vaccination effort in the city’s history,” said de Blasio. “Everything else that we have to deal with, all the challenges you mentioned, are COVID based in many ways.”
Earlier in the pandemic, health experts set a roughly 80% vaccination rate as the goalpost for herd immunity although scientists are now debating whether that number is now actually closer to 90%. De Blasio acknowledged “the ongoing debate” around herd immunity but continued to stress the importance of the vaccine in knocking down new COVID-19 cases across the city and country.
“Think about vaccination as the most powerful way to inhibit COVID…overall what we´re seeing here is the reason for a month and more the COVID numbers have plateaued or gone down, the reason the hospitalization rate, in particular, has gone down markedly is because of a massive level of vaccination,” de Blasio told Lehrer.
De Blasio added the City expects to see more vaccinations “particularly among young people¨ within the coming weeks adding close to 70% of all 12 to 17-year-olds have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine.
“It´s important for New Yorkers to recognize we could literally end the COVID era and make COVID in effect the equivalent of what we deal with each year with the flu,” said de Blasio. “We could do that as early as next year if we continue this success with vaccination.”
