Governor Andrew Cuomo announces that two new vaccination centers will open, one in Brooklyn and one in Queens, which will be focused on reaching the minority communities most heavily impacted by the pandemic.
The new centers will be located at York College in Jamaica and Medgar Evers College in the Crown Heights sector and are planned to open the week of February 24.
“These sites are unlike anything we’ve done before,” Cuomo said when announcing the sites.
NEW: NY will partner with the federal gov on mass vaccination sites in socially vulnerable communities.
Each new site will vaccinate 3,000 people daily & serve as a model for the nation.
First two sites to open in Central Brooklyn & Queens on Feb 24, with other sites to follow.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) February 10, 2021
“They are going to be very large sites. They are complicated situations, but they are going to address a dramatic need for the vaccine for the people who need it most,” the governor added.
These will be the largest vaccination centers in the state to date and are designed to administer 3,000 daily doses.
These centers will receive doses specially reserved by the federal government which will not impact the rest of the doses that the city normally receives.
The site in Jamaica is close to communities that have seen high rates of deaths from COVID-19, according to city data.
The centers, Cuomo added, aim to combat skepticism in those communities about the vaccine, creating confidence that the vaccine is safe and accessible.
Cuomo also underlined the fact that the centers are not part of the state or municipal health systems.
Cuomo’s announcement comes after it was known that the federal government will increase the doses of the vaccine that the state will receive by five percent in the next three weeks.
Likewise, Cuomo’s announcement came less than an hour after Mayor Bill de Blasio appeared at Citi Field to draw attention to the opening of that venue, which however only has enough supply to deliver 800 doses of vaccinations until Saturday.
In response to a question about the state opening a separate supply vaccine center in Queens just after the city opened an undersupplied site in the same county, Cuomo said of the city: “That was their decision. “.
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