NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – New York City has less than 30,000 first doses of COVID-19 vaccines left, meaning tens of thousands of appointments may not be scheduled this week, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday.
“We’ve got fewer than 30,000 first doses on hand right now,” de Blasio said at his daily briefing. “That means we’re going to run out today, tomorrow. We’re going to run out of what we have now.”
De Blasio said 30,000 to 35,000 appointments—or even more—may not be scheduled this week “because we don’t have vaccines.”
“Appointments we would have been putting up available to people right now, we have to hold them back because the vaccine hasn’t arrived,” the mayor said.
It's unclear if the shortage is impacting state-run vaccination sites like the Javits Center.
De Blasio said weather was causing shipment delays, with winter storms pounding regions across the U.S. this week, including the tri-state and Texas.
“It’s a national problem, what’s happening with the weather. And it’s gumming up supply lines all over the country,” de Blasio said.
“I do know that, initially, it looks like 30,000 or 35,000 appointments will have to be held back or not scheduled while we see if we can get these shipments in,” the mayor said.
“We’re watching it hour to hour, and we’ll keep updating everyone,” he said.
De Blasio said the city has administered 1,365,956 doses of vaccine as of Wednesday morning, more than the population of the city of Dallas.
He said the city has the ability to do 500,000 doses a week if it had the supply and if vaccines were “fairly” distributed to the five boroughs.
The mayor also announced that the city has been overhauling its vaccine scheduling website, nyc.gov/vax4nyc. He said appointments take about 3 to 4 minutes to make “when they’re available due to supply.”
“This is a streamlined approach,” de Blasio said of the site overhaul. “We’re going to be bringing all of the different providers who are now working with the city […] they are agreeing to be a part of this website to make things move more smoothly, so there’s a more unified approach.”
He said the city is asking all of the vaccination providers to use the city’s site so “more and more things get centralized and simplified.”