The Big Apple has set a new record for COVID vaccinations administered in a single day, dispensing more than 90,000 doses, officials said Friday as the city continues to accelerate distribution of the jabs to battle against increasingly infectious variants of the coronavirus.
City Hall revealed that New York’s network of publicly run vaccine hubs and private dispensers — such as pharmacies — gave 93,380 shots Thursday of one of the three authorized coronavirus vaccines.
All told, 34 percent of New Yorkers are now partially or completely vaccinated against the deadly pandemic — with one in five New Yorkers now completely inoculated.
“We do see the pressure of the variants,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told WNYC host Brian Lehrer during his weekly appearance on the radio station Friday.
“We take that very seriously. But, I think, in the end, as we, particularly, are able to do more vaccinations,” he added, “we really can outrace the variants if we keep expanding the number of vaccinations.”
The surge in vaccinations comes as city health officials attempt to battle back against more contagious variants of the coronavirus, which they have blamed for the city and state’s case levels plateauing at levels far higher than those seen last summer and fall.
That’s left city officials in the strange position of asking New Yorkers to avoid crowds as embattled Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushes ahead with the state’s reopening, loosening restrictions as he contends with a deluge of scandals — including probes into his office’s cover-up of key nursing home coronavirus death statistics and allegations he sexually harassed female members of his staff and other women.
