#NYC hits 80% adult COVID jabs, with surge after mandates

More than 80 percent of adults in the Big Apple have gotten at least one shot to protect them against the coronavirus and Mayor Bill de Blasio heralded the high vaccination rate as proof the pandemic is finally being brought to heel across the five boroughs.

Figures from the city Health Department show that 5.3 million of the 6.6 million adults across the five boroughs have now gotten at least one shot — and that New York City and its suburbs are the most vaccinated big city metro area in the country.

“This is how we end the COVID era,” said de Blasio on WNYC’s ‘Brian Lehrer Show’ as he touted the statistics. “We could do this as early as next year if we continue this success with vaccination.”

The city crossed the 80 percent mark for adults this week following a dramatic uptick in the rate of vaccination after City Hall’s shots campaign seemed in danger of stalling out during the early weeks of the summer.

De Blasio responded to a slowing down in rates of vaccination among those who had still not gotten the jabs with a slew of vaccine mandates for his 300,000-plus municipal employees and instituting a proof-of-vaccination requirement for indoor service at businesses — like restaurants, bars and night clubs.

The data from the Health Department shows a dramatic surge in the pace of New Yorkers coming in for their first shots following the new mandates — as well as an expansion of the city’s vaccine incentives to include a $100 debit card.

The vaccination effort suffered its slowest pace between July 4 and July 11 when just 57,730 New Yorkers showed up for their first shots — and then it slowly began to find new life.

More than 82,000 showed up for their first shots the week de Blasio hit the city workforce with rules requiring a weekly COVID test for unvaccinated employees.

The surge key growing until it hit its recent high watermark between August 8 and August 14 — the week after de Blasio announced the ‘Key to New York’ passport program — when 110,680 New Yorkers got their first shots.

Since then, the pace has slowed but remains far above the levels seen during the mid-summer doldrums: 94,273 got their shots during the most recently completed week, which ran from September 5 to September 11.

De Blasio credited the city’s high vaccination rate as the main reason the Big Apple has been able to dodge the devastating Delta-variant fueled outbreaks that have slammed Texas, Florida and other states, mainly in the South.

The vaccines are “the most powerful way to inhibit COVID,” he said. “The reason, for now a month or more, the COVID numbers have plateaued or gone down, the reason the hospitalization rate has gone down markedly, is the massive level of vaccination.”

Figures collected by COVIDActNow — a non-profit partnership that includes Georgetown University Medical Center, Stanford University School of Medicine and the Harvard Global Health Institute — report that 70 percent of residents in the New York metro area have received at least one shot. That’s better than 67 percent in the Los Angeles metro and 62 percent in the Chicago metro, according to its analysis.

But the vaccine and passport policies are controversial. Several labor unions have sued de Blasio after he required all Department of Education staff get vaccinated — with no testing opt-out allowed.

While the main lobby groups for restaurants and bars and many prominent chefs have backed the new vaccine passport program, several local restaurants went to court to challenge it.

Additionally, the staffs at some other eateries have said they are wary about enforcing the requirement.

Just hours before de Blasio’s hailed the latest vaccine figures, three tourists from Texas were arrested after attacking a hostess at an Upper West Side red sauce joint after she asked them for their proof of vaccination.

And the news is not all good. The city’s vaccination campaign continues to lag in poorer outerborough neighborhoods, particularly those that are heavily black or Orthodox, according to the Health Department figures.

The city’s least vaccinated zip code covers the Far Rockaway and Edgemere neighborhoods in southeast Queens, where just 58 percent of adults have received one shot.

The zip codes that cover eastern sections of Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant, Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Brighton Beach and Coney Island are the second worst, with just 60 percent of adults having received one shot.

Meanwhile, the zip codes for Brooklyn’s Midwood and Canarsie and Queens’s Laurelton and Rosedale tied for third worst, with just 61 percent of adults vaccinated.

And when counting all age groups, Borough Park is the least vaccinated zip code in the city — just 49 percent of residents have received at least one shot.

Number of shots by week:

• 7/4/2021: 57,730 (Recent low)
• 7/11/2021: 62,451
• 7/18/2021: 69,491 (Mandate for staff at city public hospitals and health clinics rolled out)
• 7/25/2021: 82,028 (Mandate expanded to all city staff)
• 8/1/2021: 108,682 (‘Key to New York’ program announced)
• 8/8/2021: 110,680 (Recent high)
• 8/15/2021: 108,303 (Passport program implemented)
• 8/22/2021: 98,123
• 8/29/2021: 96,575
• 9/5/2021: 94,273