NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday that anyone in Phase 1a who wants to get vaccinated can make reservations online now and that a call center will be set up for reservations starting next week.
De Blasio said New Yorkers in 1a should visit nyc.gov/vaccinelocations. He said it’s a “portal to getting your appointment” at various locations across the boroughs.
“You can go there now and get appointments at a number of sites,” de Blasio said, adding the city aimed to have 160 sites by the end of the week.
The city is also launching a call center for reservations on Monday. De Blasio said that was partly in anticipation that the state would soon authorize people eligible under Phase 1b, including seniors over 75 who may be more inclined to make their reservations by phone.
“We’re going to be ready on Monday for people to pick up the phone, call, get screened, make a reservation by phone,” the mayor said.
The city will also soon launch “My Turn NYC,” a hub that will help anyone check on their eligibility and figure out the timing of when they may be able to get vaccinated.
Among those currently eligible under Phase 1a are health care workers; residents or staff in group living facilities; medical examiners and coroners; funeral workers; and frontline, high-risk public health workers. See the full eligibility list at nyc.gov.
De Blasio on Thursday also implored the state to “stand back” after Gov. Andrew Cuomo shot down the mayor’s assertion that 25,000 police officers qualified for vaccinations under state guidelines.
“We were ready to go and do a huge vaccination effort at Dept. of Correction and the NYPD,” de Blasio said. “We were told by the state that they would not allow that.”
At his briefing Wednesday, Cuomo said that most NYPD officers still don’t qualify for vaccinations under the state’s guidelines, despite de Blasio’s pronouncement.
“Police who are not health care workers are not yet eligible,” Cuomo said. “We need to get the health care population done first because they are the front line.”
Revised guidelines released by the state Tuesday did not explicitly say that police officers could be vaccinated, but a de Blasio spokesperson said city officials were told they could include police and correction officers working in the city’s jails as front-line workers eligible for the shots.
De Blasio said the city wanted to ensure that officers who work in close proximity with the public and whose duties include performing CPR and administering the overdose medication Narcan have the opportunity to get vaccinated immediately.
“Sometimes the federal government, the state government need to stand back and let local government do what it knows how to do best,” the mayor said Thursday.
“We need the right to vaccinate. We need the freedom to vaccinate,” he said.
De Blasio also implored the state to approve vaccinations for Phase 1b, which includes people over the age of 75, as well as frontline essential workers like food service workers and educators. He said it was a matter of expanding the pool of eligible people "to do this efficiently."
“That should be a decision today, authorizing that we can vaccinate everyone over 75 in New York City,” the mayor said.
“I’ve got a huge number of folks over 75 who would show up right now if we were allowed to do it. State won’t allow it. I’ve got a bunch of police officers who are ready right now. State won’t allow it. Correction officers, state won’t allow it. Go down the list. Give us the freedom and we can move these numbers,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.