Three vaccine hubs will open this Sunday at Bushwick Education Campus in Brooklyn, Hillcrest High School in Queens and South Bronx Educational Campus on Sunday, Jan. 10, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday.
“This is the shape of things to come,” said de Blasio. “This is the model to start getting us to the grassroots.”
Last week, the mayor announced plans to speed up vaccination efforts in the city by creating a network of vaccination hubs this month with the goal of administering one million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine over the upcoming weeks.
Hubs, which will be will be set up in places like school gymnasiums with priority to be given to the 27 neighborhoods hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic, the mayor said, with the goal of administering 45,000 doses of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine a week. By the end of the month, de Blasio pledged to increase the total number of vaccination sites in the city should from 160 to 250.
At the moment, New York state is in Phase 1a of its COVID-19 distribution plan which means that “high risk” healthcare workers, nursing home residents and staff are receiving the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require patients that get two shots spread out roughly three weeks apart.
Mayor de Blasio said beginning Monday COVID testing site staff, contact tracers, dentists, physical therapists, NYPD medical staff, specialized clinic staff as well as outpatient and ambulatory care providers are now eligible to receive the first dose of an FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine. De Blasio added that home care workers, hospice workers, and more nursing staff will be eligible to be vaccinated starting next Monday, January 11.
