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NYC's First 24/7 Vaccine Sites Open In The Bronx And Brooklyn, Three More On The Way
By
Sydney Pereira
Published Jan 11, 2021
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By
Sydney Pereira
Published Jan 11, 2021
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The city's first 24/7 vaccine sites in Brooklyn and the Bronx are set to vaccinate up to 2,000 people a day at each location, which city health officials hope will help New Yorkers newly eligible for the vaccine get the shot, including older New Yorkers ages 75 and up.
The appointment-only sites opened Sunday, with 24/7 hours starting Monday, at the Bathgate Contract Postal Station in the Claremont section of the Bronx and the Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park.
"This building's going to be 24/7," Mayor Bill de Blasio Blasio told reporters Sunday afternoon after touring the Bronx location. "We know there's gonna be a lot of demand. The best thing we can do is keep making sure it's more efficient and effective each day. And certainly with testing, that's the lesson we learned."
Three more 24/7 sites open this week at a Health Department site at 125 Worth Street in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday, the Health + Hospitals Vanderbilt Clinic in Staten Island on Wednesday, and the Queens Corona Clinic on Saturday, according to de Blasio. Seventeen city sites open across the five boroughs this week, and the state opens a mass vaccination site at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Wednesday. Overall, there are 160 sites across the five boroughs.
Dozens of healthcare personnel and nurses will work 24/7 to check in patients and guide them from one step to the next—registration, vaccination, and a 15-minute observation period at socially-distanced tables and chairs. New Yorkers must sign up for an appointment for a shot, which city health officials hope will reduce wait times and ensure the process is secure.
Those getting their first shot will receive a vaccination card as well as an appointment for the second dose—crucial for full protection from the virus for the only two U.S. authorized vaccines, manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna.
"We want people to ... not have to wait out in the cold, come in, get the shot," said Dr. Ted Long, the executive director of the virus Test & Trace Corps in NYC. "In and out as quickly as possible."
About three dozen people had signed up for vaccines at the Bronx site on Sunday—the site's soft launch before 24/7 hours begin Monday morning, according to the "site lead" overseeing operations at Bathgate, Moya Dunlap. Dunlap anticipates the site will operate more quickly than it did as a test site.
"We were a COVID testing site first, and we noticed that the first thing that was the longest to do was the registration process because there's so much information that has to be gathered," Dunlap said. With appointments required, the process should run more quickly.
The rollout is a part of de Blasio's strategy to ramp up vaccinations after an abysmal start in the city and across the country. In NYC, 203,181 doses have been administered, including 17,421 second doses, since December 14th, according to date updated Sunday. That's out of 525,425 doses the city has received in total.
Even with various sites opening up last week, vaccine administration has not substantially risen, for which de Blasio faulted Governor Andrew Cuomo's statewide restrictions on vaccine eligibility. After days of feuding and public pressure, Cuomo expanded priority access to hundreds of thousands more eligible New Yorkers, including people at least 75 years old, teachers and education workers, first responders and public safety workers, public transit workers, which officially begins Monday. All told, 4 million people in the state are eligible for the vaccine between phases 1a and 1b.
New Yorkers who are eligible can find a location and sign up for an appointment at an online vaccine site launched Sunday—a task already proving burdensome with lengthy questionnaires and multiple scheduling systems.
De Blasio has committed to administering 1 million doses by the end of January in NYC.
According to the city's vaccine tracker, there would have to be more than 36,000 doses administered a day everyday between Sunday and the end of the month to reach that goal. That's more than double the city's peak dose administrations since mid-December, when administration began.
But due to an increase in vaccine sites and expanded eligibility, Long expects numbers to rise rapidly.
"This week is gonna be an explosive growth," added Long. "We're gonna see more this week than we have in previous weeks for sure."
Pam Adams, a hospice social worker who lives in Central Harlem, was emotional about getting the vaccine.
"I've had patients who have died, and I've got friends who are in the hospital now, who are gravely ill and still don't know which way it's going to go," Adams said outside of Bathgate after getting the shot. "So it's just a mixture of sadness and grief and happiness and hope and relief and pretty much every emotion."
She added that the 24/7 operating hours was a "brilliant" plan for workers in the healthcare field like herself.
The director of a special education program in the Bronx, Katherine Schaefer, said she signed up as soon as she was able book a time-slot on the city's website.
"I work in education, and I was really excited to get vaccinated," Schaefer said. "Once the intake [was done], they already had my next appointment setup."
At the Brooklyn Army Terminal, City Councilmember Brad Lander welcomed the new location, but said more needs to be done to expand infrastructure, eligibility, and supplies.
Accessibility is another concern, elected officials in the Bronx and Brooklyn said. Lander noted he spoke with an 80-year-old man who wanted to register for a vaccine in person because he doesn't use the Internet.
To help those without technical resources or internet access, a hotline will launch Monday to help people sign up for an appointment over the phone.
The virus has worsened in parts of the Bronx in recent weeks, second only to Staten Island. Bronx elected officials urged residents to sign up for the shot and learn more about the two-dose vaccine if they are skeptical.
"Since the pandemic we've been decimated," said Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. "We've all seen our family members and neighbors die, and we're seeing our small businesses decimated and are dying as we speak."
The vaccine, he said, "is the answer."
Tagged
vaccination
COVID-19
coronavirus
vaccines
bronx
Sydney Pereira
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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