Mass vaccination centers will open in Brooklyn and The Bronx this Sunday, Jan. 10, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday.
Both centers, which will be set up at the Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park and Industrial Park in The Bronx, will be open 24 hours a day seven days a week, de Blasio said, and will take patients by appointment only.
The sites are the first two out of five mass vaccination centers proposed by de Blasio earlier this week to aid the city’s goal of administering one million COVID-19 vaccine doses by the end of the month. Each of the five boroughs is slated to get its own vaccination center with the city planning on opening one at East Harlem’s La Marqueta to serve Manhattanites pending state approval, de Blasio said Monday.
Officials are still figuring out where to place a site in Queens and on Tuesday de Blasio said possible locations on Staten Island have been narrowed down to either the Richmond Savings Bank Park or at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal.
Another potential Brooklyn Site, de Blasio added, is at MCU Park, the Brooklyn Cyclone stadium in Coney Island.
In addition, there are three “vaccination hubs” opening this weekend at Hillcrest High School in Queens, South Bronx High School, and Bushwick High School with more hubs to come online the following Saturday including sites at Marta Valle High School and the Wadleigh Secondary School for The Visual and Performing Arts in Manhattan.
That same Saturday, hubs will open at Abraham Lincoln High School and George Washington High School in Brooklyn, Port Richmond High School, and Staten Island Tech in Staten Island, Walton High School and Adlai Stevenson High School in The Bronx, and August Martin High School and Beach Channel High School in Queens.
Eligible New Yorkers interested in receiving either FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna can register for an appointment at the vaccination site by filling out a questionnaire on the city’s website. Under phase 1a of the state’s vaccination distribution plan only “high-risk” health care workers, EMS personnel, urgent care providers, and home care workers can receive the vaccine.
De Blasio again pleaded for more localities to have more flexibility in administering the vaccine in order to reach the city’s most vulnerable groups, especially residents over the age of 75 which the city still does not have permission to inoculate.
Here is the full list of eligible categories according to the city’s website:
- High-risk health care workers in hospitals and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), including NYS Office of Mental Health (OMH) psychiatric centers
- High-risk health care workers who provide direct in-person care in outpatient/ambulatory settings and other staff in these settings who have direct contact with patients (such as reception staff); this group includes workers in private or hospital-affiliated medical practices, specialty medical practices, public health clinics, dental practices and diagnostic and treatment centers; phlebotomists; dialysis workers; occupational therapists; physical therapists; speech therapists; behavioral health workers; and student health workers
- Emergency medical services (EMS) personnel
- Urgent care providers
- Health care workers administering COVID-19 vaccines
- Health care workers in COVID-19 testing sites
- Home care workers and aides, hospice workers, personal care aides, and consumer-directed personal care workers.
