New York City is going to run out of coronavirus vaccine doses this week and will have to cancel appointments unless they receive more, Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) said Tuesday.
The city is aiming to vaccinate 300,000 people this week, but only has 92,000 doses on hand. More than 450,000 doses have been administered to date.
“We will have literally nothing left to give as of Friday,” de Blasio said. If the city doesn’t get a resupply, they will have to close vaccination sites and cancel all appointments after Thursday.
Unless the federal government or the state steps in, the city won’t get resupplied until next Tuesday.
“We have the ability to vaccinate a huge number of people. We need the vaccine to go with it,” de Blasio said.
De Blasio is the latest in a growing number of state and local officials calling on the federal government to allocate more doses. The officials have spoken about unpredictable shipments each week, and a lack of clear communication from the Trump administration.
The situation has resulted in chaos, as states and hospitals are left scrambling to figure out just how many doses they have and how best to administer them. It is a problem President-elect Joe Biden will have to address quickly to meet his goal of 100 million vaccinations in the administration’s first 100 days.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Monday asked Pfizer for the ability to buy COVID-19 vaccine doses directly from the company rather than waiting on federal distribution, because the administration has not given the state enough doses.
Pfizer said it would need federal approval to do so.
New York City this month is opening up mass vaccination sites that will be operating around the clock, seven days a week, including Citi Field in Queens and Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.
“Get us the vaccine,” de Blasio said. “We don’t need complexity, we need simplicity. The better we know what kind of supply we’re going to have, the more people we can vaccinate, the more lives we can save.”
According to state data, New York City has administered about 75 percent of the doses it has received, while the state overall has administered 77 percent.