'They don't care about Queens': Paltry vaccine rollout begins at Citi Field
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A city-run vaccine site at Citi Field opened for Queens residents, taxi drivers and food service workers Wednesday. Eagle photo by Rachel Vick
By Rachel Vick
Eddie Elkin felt Amazin’ Wednesday morning.
Elkin, a Queens resident who services ATMs, was one of the very few people able to secure a COVID-19 vaccine at a new distribution site at Citi Field.
“It will make me feel more comfortable and less nervous about a lot,” he said after entering the stadium and rolling up his sleeve.
Others were left out in the cold, forced to coordinate some other way of accessing a vaccine elusive to millions of New Yorkers.
The Mets ballpark was initially billed as “a 24/7, mega-vaccination site” when Mayor de Blasio and club owner Steve Cohen announced the rollout plan last month. But that was before a dearth of doses and a lack of coordination between the state, federal, and city government delayed opening day by more than two weeks and left a pitiful number of vaccines for the lucky few who could secure an appointment.
De Blasio acknowledged the slow start to the initiative, but said the 200 daily doses reserved for Queens residents, taxi drivers and food service workers was “the beginning of something very big.”
“We start here at Citi Field, but we're going to build up,” he said. Starting next week, medical workers at the site will provide 4,000 doses a week and eventually 5,000 doses a day — as long as supply is available, de Blasio added.
Queens residents seemed to get the memo about the lack of doses.
A relatively small number of people showed up at the ballpark, where metal fencing led the way from the Mets-Willets Point 7 Train station to the main gate.
After approaching the stadium’s main entrance, near the iconic apple, prospective patients were directed into the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, where they sat and waited for their shots
New York City Test and Trace workers handed out masks and information near the subway exit as well as the entrance to the stadium parking lot, where several yellow cabs sat. Their drivers, eligible for the vaccine, were inside the stadium.
Some vaccine recipients were forced to wait about 45 minutes while de Blasio and other officials toured the facility, but Queens resident Mary Donnelly said she was OK waiting a bit a longer for the potentially life-saving shot.
“It took a while, but everything went smoothly,” Donnelly said.
Queens resident Mary Donnelly was among the first people to be vaccinated at the CIti Field site. Photo via NYC Mayor/Twitter
Others were angry about the limited distribution and said they thought they would be able to make an appointment on site, as people are able to do at a state-run site at Yankee Stadium.
Queens seniors Mary Robinson and Barbara Bonano said they have tried to make an appointment online for three weeks but were unsuccessful. They said they showed up at the ballpark to try in-person.
“We’re very frustrated,” said Robinson, who came from Flushing expecting several booths for on-site scheduling. “We traveled here in the hopes of getting an appointment — it’s not right.”
De Blasio said New York City Chief Equity Officer Annabel Palma would help some of the visitors make an appointment after being questioned by reporters.
But Bonano summed up the perspective of many borough residents.
“They don’t care about Queens,” said Bonano.
