New York City’s COVID-19 positivity rate is the lowest it has been since the pandemic began last year, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday.
The mayor announced during his weekly interview on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show” the city’s overall COVID positivity rate has fallen to 0.78%. De Blasio attributed the shrinking number of new cases of the virus to the growing number of New Yorkers getting vaccinated. Since the Pfizer vaccine first arrived in New York state last December, an “astounding” 8,408,000 doses of a COVID-19 have been administered across the five boroughs, de Blasio told show host Brian Lehrer.
“That is New Yorkers making a decision to protect themselves, their family, their city. That’s also a lot of great people like healthcare workers, outreach workers, hospital workers who have been there to vaccinate people when they are ready,” said de Blasio. “Because people made this decision we are consistently squeezing COVID out of the city.”
The announcement comes on the first day that families can take advantage of the City’s pilot youth vaccination program where children between the ages of 12 and 17 can receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at four Bronx public schools. Officials plan to establish vaccination sites at schools in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn on Sunday and Monday and eventually expand the program across the five boroughs in order to create easy access to the vaccines for city children 12 and older.
Next stop, Bronx Writing Academy! @DOEChancellor visits our first @NYCSchools vaccination site for 12+ eligible New Yorkers. Swing by, there’s ice cream! @UFT @nycHealthy @BWA09x323 pic.twitter.com/NwjQEASjD8
— Danielle Filson (@DanielleFilson) June 4, 2021
Kids 12 and older only became eligible to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in May. Since then, about 118,000 New York City children have received the shot, according to Mayor de Blasio.
“The school year is coming to an end but we intend to get into all five boroughs, reach a number of schools, see what kind of uptake we get and then that’s going to determine the next steps to summarizing the initiative,” de Blasio said. The mayor added the city is looking to vaccinate children at summer school locations. “I think that between now and the second week of September we will reach a very high percentage of young people.”
Here is the Department of Education’s current list of schools offering vaccines to eligible kids:
Friday, June 4, 10am – 6pm:
- Bronx Writing Academy, JHS Jordan L. Mott (both at 270 E. 167th St., Bronx)
- JHS 118 William W. Niles (577 East 179th St., Bronx)
- MS 180 Dr. Daniel Hale Williams (750 Baychester Ave., Bronx)
Sunday, June 6 and Monday, June 7 from 8am – 6pm:
- IS 90 (21 Jumel Place, Manhattan)
- IS 88 (544 7th Avenue, Brooklyn)
- PS 214 (1970 West Farms Road, Bronx)
