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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that as of Thursday, April 29, the state’s 16 mass vaccination sites will be accepting walk-ins for all residents 16 and older.
“With COVID, we're at a little bit of a point of transition,” Cuomo said during a COVID-19 conference earlier this week in Johnson City. “We’ve been doing great with the vaccinations at distribution sites across the state, but we’re seeing a reduction in the number of people coming in for vaccines.”
According to Cuomo, the state had been administering approximately 175,000 vaccines statewide every 24 hours, though that number has been reduced to approximately 115,000, leaving open appointments all over New York.
In response, Cuomo said that they will be opening mass vaccination sites on Thursday to all-comers, whether an appointment has been made or not.
“Well, you can say, ‘maybe our distribution declined,’” Cuomo said. “Well, it didn’t. The demand is reducing. Fewer people are asking for appointments, and when we started people were chasing an appointment and you had to be an expert on the Internet to figure out how to get an appointment.
“So now you don’t have to call to make an appointment. All New Yorkers 16-plus just have to come to a mass vaccination site on Thursday and you are eligible for the vaccine.”
Mass vaccination sites are currently located in:
- SUNY Old Westbury;
- Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn;
- National Guard Armory in Yonkers;
- Aqueduct Race Track in South Ozone Park;
- Suffolk Community College in Brentwood;
- York College in Queens;
- Yankee Stadium;
- Javits Center in Manhattan;
- SUNY Binghamton;
- Delavan Grider Community Center in Buffalo;
- Kodak-Hawkeye Parking Lot in Rochester;
- Rochester Dome Arena;
- SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Utica;
- NYS Fair in Syracuse;
- Crossgates Mall in Albany;
- Washington Avenue Armory in Albany.
Cuomo also noted that on Thursday, all local health departments who are operating local sites will have the option to welcome walk-in appointments if they have the supply of vaccines to accommodate the community.
“For all the people who said ‘well, this is … I’m not comfortable going on the Internet and don’t want to call a lot of people,’ all obstacles have been removed,” Cuomo added. “All barriers are removed. Just show up, roll up your sleeve, and mass vaccination sites will have the capacity to handle it.”
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