What you should know
- New York City is expected to reach a milestone on Thursday, as six million New Yorkers will have received at least the first dose of a COVID vaccine, a spectacular 85 percent.
- Adolescents (12 years and older) are 75 percent vaccinated with at least one dose.
- Mayor Bill de Blasio also shared that another “encouraging trend” that the city has been seeing is that “as vaccines have risen, hospitalizations have decreased.”
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NEW YORK – New York City is expected to reach a milestone Thursday as six million New Yorkers will have received at least the first dose of a COVID vaccine, a spectacular 85 percent.
Mayor Bill de Blasio made the announcement during his daily press conference Thursday, saying that “today is going to be one of those important days in our fight against COVID” and called the figure “incredible.”
“This is a staggering number,” he said. “This is how we go back. When you look around the country and see other places that are struggling, and I feel bad for them, in many cases it is because their leaders did not do the right thing and did not focus on vaccination. Here we did it together. “.
De Blasio went on to say that while the figures show that more than 84 percent have received at least one dose, a large percentage of them have already returned for their second dose in a two-dose vaccination series.
“Six million people who have done the right thing for themselves, for their families and their community received at least the first dose; many of those people, of course the vast majority, have also received the second dose now,” he said.
According to de Blasio, as of Thursday, more than 84 percent of New York City adults had received at least one dose of the vaccine. Adolescents (12 years and older) are 75 percent vaccinated with at least one dose. (Pfizer is the only two-dose COVID-19 vaccine approved for people 12 years of age and older. Moderna, another two-dose vaccine, is approved for those 18 and older. Johnson & Johnson, the only one-dose vaccine available in the United States, it is also only approved for ages 18 and over).
“So far, more than 84 percent of New York City adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine. More than 84 percent! That’s a super, super majority!” Said the mayor. “When have you ever seen 84 percent of New Yorkers agree on something? Young people, teenagers, 75 percent are already vaccinated.”
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De Blasio went on to say that another “encouraging trend” that the city has been seeing is that “as vaccines have risen, hospitalizations have decreased.”
NYC Health + Hospitals director Dr. Mitch Katz also said the city currently has the lowest hospitalization rate since the start of the pandemic. Out of a peak of about 3,000 COVID patients daily at the peak of the pandemic, the city’s 11 public hospitals now have just 70 COVID patients. Also, at the peak, Health + Hospitals saw 960 in the intensive care units of their hospitals, but now that number is 16.
The mayor continues to encourage those who have not been vaccinated to do so. At the rate the city is going, De Blasio said, there are only about a million adult New Yorkers left who need to get the COVID vaccine.
“At this point, there are only about a million adults to be vaccinated and they keep coming. The incentives the mandates, everything is working,” de Blasio said.
“We are so close to where we need to be. We have more work to do, COVID will not leave us immediately, we have real work to do to finish this mission. Everyone can be a part of it. We can get there.”
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