Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, everyone. It’s a great day, because in just a little more than 24 hours we'll be able to say President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris and so much is going to change for the better for this nation for this city. It's an exciting moment. And there are so many reasons to be excited, the one I want to focus on is President-elect Biden's very clear, powerful pledge to vaccinate Americans at a record rate. He's calling for 100 million doses to be given in his first 100 days. I commend him. That's the kind of goal we need. What a clear departure from what we have known. And that's the kind of commitment that's going to help us here in New York City to get the vaccine we need, because the central message today is we are vaccinating people faster and faster, it's getting better and better, and just now we are running out a vaccine and we need it desperately. A new president, I think, is going to make all the difference.
So, let's talk about what's going on with our vaccination effort here. It's extraordinary. Last week, we set a public goal of 175,000 vaccinations. We surpassed that goal this last week, ending Sunday, ending up the week was about 220,000 – over 220,000 vaccinations in New York City. So, the pace of vaccination is going faster and faster. Look, these numbers keep growing. What it meant – as of Sunday, that a New Yorker was being vaccinated every three seconds. That's what was happening in New York City. Every three seconds a New Yorker got vaccinated as of Sunday. As of today, since the beginning of the vaccination effort, 455,737 doses have been given here in New York City. Later today into tomorrow, we'll go get to half-a-million doses having been given since the beginning. Look, the good news is we have the ability to do this faster and faster. We're setting a goal for this week, assuming we have the vaccine – and I'll talk about that in a moment – if we have the vaccine we needed, we could vaccinate 300,000 people this week we're in right now – if we had the vaccine. The problem is, right now, we don't. So, right now, we had a small supply come in – today are coming in – today, 53,000 doses, leaving us with only 116,000 for the week ahead. Look, at the race we are going, we will begin to run out on Thursday – this Thursday, two days from now. And we will have literally nothing left to give as of Friday. What does that mean? It means if we don't get more vaccine quickly, a new supply of vaccine, we will have to cancel appointments and no longer give shots after Thursday for the remainder of the week at a lot of our sites. We will not get on the current schedule resupplied again until next Tuesday, which means for many of our sites we couldn't vaccinate again until the day after next Wednesday. This is crazy. This is not the way it should be. We have the ability to vaccinate a huge number of people. We need the vaccine to go with it.
So, right now, it is up to the federal government, it is up to the State, it's up to the manufacturers to do everything they can to get us the maximum supply, because we are proving that, literally, every passing day, we can reach more and more people. Again, I'm very hopeful the Biden Administration is going to fix a lot of this. They are just coming into office, of course, it's going to take time, but their commitment is there and I appreciate that deeply. Right now, in New York City, capacity, growing every day – four 24/7 sites open right now, 15 Health Department hubs, new 24-seven sites coming, including the Empire Outlets in Staten Island, a Citi Field, which we’ve talked about before. Yankee Stadium, coming soon – and we're excited about that. Thank you to the New York Yankees. But all of this is what we need, but it won't work without vaccine. There are so many people ready to be vaccinated. We need the vaccine to reach all the New Yorkers who, right now, are ready to put their arms out and get the shot.
Now, I want to talk about what it's going to take, going forward, to get this right. Supply, of course, but let's talk about the approach we need. So, we're putting forward today five principles that really should govern what we do from now on. If we're going to get this right, if we're going to make it fast and smooth and really hit the huge numbers we need over the coming months, these are the five principles that should govern our actions. One – supply, bottom line. Federal government and the manufacturers, working with the State, maximize the supply to New York City because we have shown a trajectory, we have shown what is going to be – what's going to be possible in terms of vaccinating – hundreds of thousands of people. Again, the goal this week, 300,000 people, we're confident we can make it if we have the vaccine. Next week, even more. Get us the vaccine. So, that's one. Two – if we put together more and more sites, the vaccine has to be there to meet the sites. So, the bottom line is, we want maximum sites, we want this to be as decentralized as possible, we want this to be as local as possible. That's what's going to encourage people. You know, we talked a while ago about all the hesitancy out there. Well, we see that hesitancy is reducing and more and more people want the vaccine, particularly older New Yorkers. But if it's hard to get to, that is going to slow things down. We want as many sites as possible, as local as possible. Number three, cut the red tape, keep the supply flowing. Federal government, State government have a variety rules. Some of those rules are making things go a lot slower than they have to. We have to reduce those bottlenecks. We don't need complexity. We need simplicity at a moment like this. So, the idea is, the better we know what kind of supply we're going to have that we can rely on, it is moving fast, we understand exactly what we can depend on, the more people we can vaccinate, the more lives we can save. Number four – again, the importance of localness. We want people to trust this process. If they're going to a local site, if they're going to a site staffed by local people, if local organizations are involved in that site, that is going to engender trust. So, hesitancy is clearly still out there. There's still trust issues that have to be addressed, but those issues get mitigated if more and more local people are involved, trusted people, trusted organizations and the site are of, and by, and for the community with community-based providers involved – that's the direction of the future. That's what's going to help us to reach millions and millions of New Yorkers. And then, number five, let's keep it simple – let's recognize that we need all of the folks who should be vaccinated to have the right to be vaccinated. We need the freedom to vaccinate a whole variety of people in the same site for just pure efficiency. And we also have some folks who still don't qualify. It just doesn't make sense. Let's look at our Sanitation workers – we absolutely depend on them, they've been heroes throughout the coronavirus crisis. I want to thank all the men and women of the Sanitation Department that you don't get the credit you deserve a lot of time, but I feel deeply for what you do. And I thank you every chance I get. You should have the right to be vaccinated. We need you. You should have the right to be vaccinated. We need you on the job. We need to protect you.
But there's other folks too – and I want to talk about our court system, our DA’s, our grand juries. Look, right now, in addition to the coronavirus crisis, we've got a lot of work to do to address what's happened in our neighborhoods as a result of this perfect storm of the COVID crisis. So many things afflicting so many people simultaneously, and that created real issues in our neighborhoods. If we're going to fight back some of the challenges we've had, we need the criminal justice system to be working nonstop. It can't be bogged down. Therefore, it makes all the sense in the world to say, look, folks who work in our court system, folks who work in our District Attorney's offices, the folks who are presenting the cases that help bring justice to help protect communities, the folks who are going to step forward to be jurors. If you get a notice to join a grand jury you should know you can do that safely. So, I want to thank some of my colleagues in government, District Attorney Melinda Katz, of Queens; District Attorney Cy Vance, in Manhattan – they've been raising these issues to me. Clearly, we want people to serve on juries. We want them to be safe. We need those juries to happen reliably. That's part of how we intensify our efforts and safety in the city. Everyone who participates in a jury should have the opportunity to get vaccinated so they know that they can do – they can participate safely. It's going to be an encouragement. And that's how we get rid of this huge backlog of cases. Our criminal justice system, it's almost been a year since it's functioned normally. Let's deal with that backlog. If everyone's vaccinated, then they can have the assurance that they can come forward and do the job.
Okay. So, that is a lot of what we need to do. Those principles govern what we need to do, going forward. That's going to put us on a real war footing, where we can really vaccinate people on a huge level. That's going to make sure that folks who need the vaccine first are getting it. That's going to make sure that effort is local and powerful and reaches people. That's all a strong, clear path forward. Now, I mentioned the court system in particular, and now I want to link it to another important issue. Again, we've got so much to do in the year 2021, to bring our city back, to speed our recovery. We've got so much to do to make our communities safe, both in terms of the health front and public safety in general. The best way to do that, of course, get everyone vaccinated, but another crucial part of the equation is deepening the relationship between police and community. We know we have work to do, and we're committed to doing that work. That's what neighborhood policing has been about all along. The NYPD in the year 2021, is going to redouble its efforts to gain trust and understanding and mutual respect at the community level. There's a lot of ways you do that. Neighborhood policing tells us that one of the number-one ways is just communicate, a lot of person-to-person communication locally. And that's been a really clear, strong element over the years that's helped us a lot. And the vast majority of our officers do their job, do it well, do it the right way, but some officers do the wrong thing. When they do the wrong thing, one of the things communities demand is fairness and consequences, really clear consequences and transparency. It makes sense.
So, last year in the first half of the year, a process was developed to start to rethink our entire approach to police discipline. And then in August last year, a proposal was put out publicly. A lot of great public comment came in and it culminated with the publishing on Friday of the new NYPD discipline matrix. This is an extraordinary document, everyone. And I want you to take a look – if you care about the relationship between police and community, if you care about public safety, if you care about reforming police and changing police culture, read this document. It is powerful. You can get it at nyc.gov/disciplinematrix. This will revolutionize the way we discipline police officers who have done the wrong thing. Now, again, we hope and we pray that as very few officers, but one of the ways to ensure it's very few officers is clear consequences. So, here you will see for the first time in NYPD history, each specific offense and the specific consequences that will occur if someone commits that offense. Everybody deserves due process. We believe in due process across the board in our society. But if that due process system says guilty, you did that offense, then the specific penalties are outlined right here – the minimums and the maximums. And what it says clearly is, for many offenses, particularly those involving the use of force, it is clear the ultimate penalty is termination. And I want to emphasize, it's not just use of force. There's a variety of other offenses that, if someone has done them, that indicates very clearly that they should not be a member of the NYPD. And I want to particularly focus here on hate speech, racism, white supremacy, anybody who utilizes speech and has beliefs that do not conform with the values of this city and this nation can't be a police officer. So, if we have an instance where someone expresses on the job racist beliefs, and exclusionary beliefs, and white supremacist beliefs – it's quite clear in this matrix, if they're found guilty of that offense, they will no longer be a member of the NYPD. That's the kind of thing we have to do forcefully and clearly, and now for the first time in our history, we have a clear public transparent template that will govern how discipline occurs, and that is for the good of all.
Okay. Before we wrap up here and turn to our indicators, just want to note, I started with the positive point about what's going to happen tomorrow in Washington D.C., and something, obviously, that will be a celebration of our nation and our democracy. But, tonight, we're going to have a more somber moment all over the nation – 5:30 tonight, the COVID Memorial, where we're going to, all together, as Americans, remember those we've lost. This is something that President-elect Biden, Vice President-elect Harris, asked everyone to participate in together as a show of unity and respect for those we've lost and for their families who are always in our thoughts and prayers. So, at 5:30 tonight, you're going to hear a church bells ringing all over the city. You're going to hear – you're going to see buildings lit up to memorialize those we've lost. I'm going out to the Statue of Liberty with Chirlane. We're going to have a ceremony there to remember the 25,000 of our fellow New Yorkers we've lost. And I think everyone out there, you know someone who we've lost or a family who lost someone – this has touched every one of us. So, tonight, let's join together in true unity and give our hearts to those families who have lost loved ones and never forget them and resolve to move forward as a city and a nation.
Okay, let's go over today's indicators. Number one, daily number of people admitted to New York City hospitals for suspected COVID-19, today's number is 255 patients. We know that is too high. And the hospitalization rate continues to grow 5.05 per 100,000. Again, despite this very real challenge New York City hospitals are doing remarkably well. They have learned so many important lessons in this crisis and continue to save lives in a remarkable fashion. But this does mean more and more pressure on our hospitals. It's something we're watching very closely. We're communicating with the State about closely. This is something to watch. This is, as the Governor has talked about the single most sensitive factor. We're going to keep an eye on that closely. New cases, daily number of cases – new cases of COVID-19 seven-day average, today's number. 5,009. A very, very high number. And then, current testing percentage of New York City residents testing positive, seven-day rolling average 8.23 percent. Again, way too high. Everybody we vaccinate, however, let's bring it back to where we started. Every single person we vaccinate changes the reality, and we're vaccinating the folks who are most vulnerable and most in greatest need. First, this is why the supply of vaccine is so crucial. With the numbers we're putting up now 300,000 people in a week, come on. That is a game changer. That starts to affect the overall environment, if we have the vaccine to go with it. So that's what we're going to talk about incessantly until we actually get the deliveries we need here in New York City.
