Bill de Blasio announced that he wanted to offer vaccination to tourists with the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) vaccine in iconic places in the city.
“Come here for sure, it’s a great place and we’ll take care of you.” What if New York had found the solution to revive its attractiveness after a year of pandemic? During a press conference Thursday, the mayor of the city, Bill de Blasio, offered to offer vaccination against Covid-19 to tourists who came to visit “The Big Apple”.
To do this, it is counting on the deployment of vans in emblematic places of the city (Central Park, Empire State Building, Times Square …) where tourists can be administered the Johnson & Johnson vaccine (Janssen in Europe), which has the advantage of requiring only one injection.
“It makes sense to put mobile vaccination sites where tourists are,” said Bill de Blasio. But to set up such a device, the mayor of New York recalled that he “needed the state to change the rule to allow us to vaccinate people outside the city”.
“Stupid”
Because for the moment, only New York residents, people who work or study there are eligible for the vaccination organized by the city. And the proposal of the mayor of New York to expand access to tourists worried some specialists.
According to Dr. Arthur Caplan, professor of medical ethics at New York University cited by the Daily Mail, Bill de Blasio’s plan is “stupid”. Notably because it would encourage unprotected tourists to go to New York without being sure that they will be vaccinated once there. “Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. It’s too risky. (…) I don’t think the vaccine will be their tourist priority if they come here”, believes- he does.
In addition, vaccinated people are not considered fully protected until two weeks after the injection. But Bill de Blasio defends his project, a “demonstration of goodwill” which sends a “positive message”. “The point is, the more people get vaccinated, the better it is for all of us. We are an interconnected country, an interconnected world,” he said. So, we might as well “vaccinate the tourists who come here if we have the capacity to do so.”
If he got the green light from the state, Bill de Blasio says he is able to deploy his mobile vaccination stands this weekend. In New York, 3.7 million people had received at least one dose of the vaccine on Thursday, or 45% of the population. 2.7 million are considered fully vaccinated (33%).
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Thats very nice action from him.