New York City is on pace to run out of COVID-19 vaccine doses and be forced to cancel appointments within a matter of days, Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) has warned.
The New York mayor in a briefing Tuesday said that the city "desperately" needs more supply as COVID-19 vaccinations move "faster and faster."
"At the rate we are going, we will begin to run out on Thursday — this Thursday, two days from now," de Blasio said. "And we will have literally nothing left to give as of Friday. ... If we don't get more vaccine quickly, a new supply of vaccine, we will have to cancel appointments and no longer give shots after Thursday for the remainder of the week at a lot of our sites."
De Blasio went on to say that "on the current schedule," New York City isn't set to be resupplied until next Tuesday, meaning "many of our sites" wouldn't be able to begin administering vaccines again until next Wednesday.
"This is crazy," de Blasio said. "This is not the way it should be. We have the ability to vaccinate a huge number of people. We need the vaccine to go with it."
De Blasio called on the federal government to do everything possible "to get us the maximum supply" of vaccines, and one day ahead of President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, he expressed hope that the incoming administration "is going to fix a lot of this." Brendan Morrow