Mayor de Blasio Applauds State's Agreeing to City's Call to Vaccinate More New Yorkers

March 9, 2021

NEW YORK—Mayor de Blasio released the following statement applauding the State’s decision to follow the City’s call to vaccinate New Yorkers over 60 years old and loosen the State’s tight restrictions on vaccination sites:

“For weeks, New York City has called for less bureaucracy and more freedom to vaccinate.”

“Finally, the State has agreed to loosen restrictions on vaccination providers. They’ve also heeded our call to expand eligibility to New Yorkers over the age of 60 and the hardworking government employees, including building service workers and nonprofit workers, who keep our city running. This is all great news.”

“But to get our vaccination effort running at maximum speed, there’s still so much more that we need.”

“We need more supply to vaccinate as many New Yorkers as possible. New York City hasn’t had a single week where we had enough supplies to hit our current capacity of half a million vaccines administered per week.”

“We also need more local control. That means being able to tell our sites and providers the number of doses they’ll get each week, every week, so they can plan ahead to conduct outreach and schedule appointments.”

“There’s not a moment to waste. Let’s cut through more red tape to get shots in the arms of as many New Yorkers as possible.”