Some of New York City’s vaccine megasites will close as more and more New Yorkers become fully vaccinated. Roughly 11 million New York adult residents are at least partially vaccinated for COVID. Hospitalizations and deaths have steeply declined, and according to MSNBC, “have been more than halved since June 1.” Around 56% of the country’s population has been vaccinated and New York state recently reached the 70% mark, which has caused a large reduction of COVID restrictions.
Across the tri-state area, vaccination sites have already begun downsizing. In New Jersey, all six megasites will be closing. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has officially announced that sites in York College, Potsdam, Corning, and Oneonta will begin shutting down on June 21st.
While smaller pop-up sites will continue to provide vaccines in areas with lower vaccination rates, they will be targeting local regions rather than funding massive vaccine sites where most people are already vaccinated. Cuomo stated, “We have to go where the need is greatest, and so many of our mass sites will gradually start downscaling so that we can use our resources to target communities where vaccination rates are still low.”
