Citi Field’s mass vaccine site opens this week for TLC drivers, food delivery workers, and Queens residents
Mayor de Blasio with Mets owner Steve Cohen and Mr. and Mrs. Met. Photo credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.
The Mets will join the Yankees in offering their stadiums to serve as mass COVID vaccination sites. Just as Yankee Stadium is earmarked for Bronx residents, Citi Field’s appointments will be set aside 50 percent for drivers with TLC licenses and food delivery workers and 50 percent for Queens residents, Mayor De Blasio announced today in a press conference. The Flushing, Queens site will open this Wednesday, February 10th at 10:00am.
Photo credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.
The Citi Field site was originally planned to open the week of January 25th, but with vaccine supply still a major issue, it was pushed back. The site will have the capacity to vaccinate between 5,000 and 7,000 people each day, provided the city has that available allocation.
When the site was first announced a month ago, Mets owner Steve Cohen said: “We can be reached by subways, by train, by highway. We’re at the intersection of Queens. The goal is just to get the vaccine in people’s arms so we can get this crisis over with and get back to living a normal life.”
Mayor de Blasio emphasized the importance of the 24-hour appointments, saying that “many people want those late-night, early-morning hours.” However, as we previously noted, “the subway remains closed between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. for nightly cleaning, making the convenient 7 train not an option for anyone with an overnight appointment.” But the Long Island Rail Road announced that it will make an additional stop on all Port Washington Branch trains at the Citi Field station (which usually only operates during baseball season).
As of this morning, New York City had administered 997,844 total vaccine doses, more than the entire population of Austin, Texas. According to the city’s own vaccine tracker, this is out of a total of 1,474,825 doses that have been delivered. When looking at the entire state of New York, 78 percent of the 2,632,385 first- and second-dose vaccinations have been administered.
The Citi Field vaccination site will be open 24 hours Wednesday through Saturday. Eligible New Yorkers can make an appointment by visiting nyc.gov/vaccinefinder or calling 877-VAX-4NYC.
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