New York.- The mayor of NY, Bill de Blasio, assured this Tuesday that the city has practically run out of vaccines against coronavirus, has suspended its plans to open stadiums during the immunization campaign and does not recommend making plans with groups of people until the summer.
De Blasio pointed out at a press conference that the city only has 7,700 doses of Covid-19 vaccines and asked the federal authorities to use the doses reserved for the second dose, even at the risk that those vaccinated would not receive the required second injection in the scheduled time.
“We are stuck, we cannot carry out vaccinations because we do not have enough vaccines,” explained the mayor of New York, who has been forced to cancel appointments to vaccinate and indefinitely suspend plans to enable the Yankees stadiums and Citi Field for a massive vaccination campaign, as there are no injections.
De Blasio said that he has 100,000 reserved doses that are not being used and has requested permission from federal authorities and the new administration of the president Joe Biden to release them.
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The city council expects to receive between this Tuesday and Wednesday about 107 thousand doses of vaccines against Covid-19 and to reschedule postponed vaccination appointments.
“Let’s use what we have right now, because we are already seeing efforts to improve production,” De Blasio said.
“We are committed to ensuring that everyone receives their second dose, but we are experiencing shortages (…) We do not live in a perfect world, we have total shortages,” said the councilor, who recalled that the second dose can be delayed without being lose effectiveness when immunizing against coronavirus.
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De Blasio said that given the lack of progress in the vaccination campaign “he would not plan any wedding this spring” and we will have to wait until summer to see the effects of immunization on the evolution of the pandemic.
The administration of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, both authorized for the moment, is being slower than expected, both due to poor coordination between the federal government and states and due to difficulties in production.
Moderna indicated today that it is meeting the deadlines agreed to with the US government and has already delivered 30 million doses and expects to be able to send the 100 million committed doses before the end of March this year.
jabf / lsm
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