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Opening of Citi Field COVID-19 Vaccine Site Postponed as NYC’s Supply Dwindles

Citi Field (Wikipedia)

Jan. 25, 2021 By Allie Griffin

The opening of a 24/7 COVID-19 vaccination site at Citi Field has been postponed as New York City’s supply of the vaccine dwindles.

The vaccine “mega site” at the ball field was originally set to open this week. However, the city doesn’t have enough doses this week to supply the site, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday.

Similar 24/7 mega sites at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and Empire Outlets on Staten Island have also been put on hold.

“We have mega sites like Citi Field and Yankee Stadium ready to go,” de Blasio said. “We want to get those to be full-blown 24 hour operations, but we don’t have the vaccine.”

The Mets home field site will have the capacity to vaccinate 5,000 to 7,000 New Yorkers each day once open.

New York City currently has 19,032 first doses of the vaccine on hand and is expecting shipments totaling 107,825 doses over the next few days, de Blasio said.

“That doesn’t even give us the beginning of what we need for a week,” he said.

Current projections estimate that the city will be able to vaccinate 500,000 people a week as soon as the vaccine supply allows it, de Blasio said.

“We’re now confident [that] we’re able to do half a million vaccinations per week if we have the supply and the flexibility,” he said.

Many sites are not accepting new appointments for vaccinations and some sites may have to reschedule existing appointments due to the lack of adequate supply.