Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, everybody. Well, this is the first full week of the new Biden administration, and I am very, very optimistic about what this new administration is going to mean for all of us here in New York City. I had the opportunity on Friday to participate in a panel the U.S Conference of Mayors sponsored Dr. Fauci, Dr. Vivek Murthy and I together, talking about what we need to do to vaccinate people quickly. And what is so clear now is the commitment of the Biden administration and the leading health experts in the administration to finding every conceivable way to get us more vaccine quickly. Now, we are waiting, in the course of this week, for more detailed information. This is what's on everybody's mind – when will the new administration be able to give us the game plan for specifically increasing the supply of vaccine? We don't have that yet today, but we do know they're supremely focused, they’re constantly communicating with us, they're looking for every conceivable way to make things move more quickly. And there's a real dialogue going on – that's one of the huge differences here. We're talking directly to the decision-makers about the kinds of things we need and the kinds of changes we could make to move the vaccination process more quickly. I'm very hopeful we're going to get answers, starting this week and in the weeks ahead that will fundamentally change the reality. And, on top of that, the fact that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine could be just a matter of weeks away, that's going to be a game-changer as well. So, again, more work to do – urgent and important week, but a lot of hope, because we have a new kind of leadership in Washington.
Now, right here in New York City, what's the latest? Well, even though we don't have the supply of vaccine we need – we urgently need more supply, we urgently need more flexibility with the supply we have – the vaccination effort keeps moving forward. Right now, as of yesterday, the number of doses given in New York City, 628,831 since the beginning of the vaccination effort. Now, I've got to put this in perspective, 628,000 doses from the beginning – that is more people who have gotten a vaccination in New York City than the entire population of Louisville, Kentucky, which is the nation's 29th largest city. Just to show you a little bit of the perspective on how much is already happening. But this is just a small beginning compared to what we could do if we had the supply. And this is the frustrating part – right now, New York City has on-hand 19,000 first doses – 19,000 designated first doses. We're expecting 107,000 more in the next few days, the weekly resupply. But, again, look at that number, that doesn't even give us the beginning of what we need for a week. Again, we have a supply problem and we have a flexibility problem, because we can't access second doses that are being held in reserve for weeks ahead and use them now as first doses where there's such intense demand. So, we're working hard to get that flexibility, but, in the meantime, if there's not more supply and there's not more flexibility we keep having to either not provide new appointments or reschedule ones that exist – and that's not fair to anyone. We need the supply. We need the flexibility.
Now, where will we be able to go when we have those things? When we have what we need, here's the latest based on experience we've had so far – New York City will be able to vaccinate half-a-million people a week as soon as we have the supply. This is an update based on the experience we've had so far and all of our projections. We're now confident – and it’s a staggering figure – we're able to do a half-a-million vaccinations per week if we have the supply and the flexibility. We said from the very beginning for this to work, we need the federal government, State government, the manufacturers to all do everything they can to help us. I'm saying it again, if we have the full partnership of our colleagues in government and the manufacturers, we can move vaccinations at a staggering level. But we need that help and we need it now.
Look, we have mega sites like Citi Field and Yankee Stadium ready to go. We want to get those to be full-blown 24-hour operations, but we don't have the vaccine. We've got local neighborhood providers, folks who are at the frontline who can build trust, who can get folks from the neighborhood to come in, who speak their language ready to go. We want to have a really neighborhood-based approach to vaccination, decentralized right down to the grassroots. We could be doing that right now, but we don't have the supply. We need the supply and that flexibility of whatever we have on hand we can use for folks who need help immediately. That freedom to vaccinate means helping a senior citizen. Let me make this vivid, when I was out at Hillcrest High School in Queens, I talked to seniors. I talked to a woman who was 97 years old, her name was Marcia. For her, the first shot alone was life changing. She had lived in fear of the coronavirus for almost a year. Just getting that first shot, knowing that that gave her 50 percent protection, made a world of difference to her physically in terms of the protection, but emotionally as well – it gave her some peace of mind, it gave her some hope. I want to get that first shot to as many of our seniors as possible, but we need that flexibility to do it. So, we're going to fight to get it right. We're going to make sure we get our fair share of doses. And this is a message that we have to our colleagues in government – in New York City, we can move so fast. Please help us get the supply, because, I guarantee you, we can get it to people fast – fast or faster than any place else. When I'm telling you, we can do a half-million in a week, that is an indication of our confidence of how quickly we can implement if we have what we need.
Now, again, last week we talked about five guiding principles that we know will allow us to move forward and do this the right way. And this, to me, is what's crucial, getting is to go fast and connecting with people at the grassroots. That's what's going to build trust. I guarantee, if people see leaders of their own community as part of the vaccination effort and sites in their own community they're familiar with, and organizations they know and trust, that's going to make the difference. That's what we'll build, so long as we have the supply to support it.
Okay. Now, the vaccination effort is crucial to everything we're going to do. It is – the number-one concern right now is everyone's health and safety. That's why we need to vaccinate as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. But right behind that, we all need to make sure that New York City has a strong recovery, that we come back strong, that everything about this city becomes stronger in the course of 2021 – we bring back our economy, we bring back our jobs.
Nothing's more important to that than getting everyone vaccinated. But as we build that effort and that recovery, there's a lot of things we need to keep doing to help our businesses in the meantime – our small businesses in particular, as they work to survive. And we know, when everyone's vaccinated, they're going to come roaring back, so many of them. But, right now, there's something we can do that's a great thing for our restaurant community. Remember, hundreds of thousands of folks work in restaurants that are part of the heart and soul of this city. And we want everyone to do what you can to help our local restaurants. So, we have a great opportunity this week, the first ever New York City Restaurant Week To Go. So, this is a great innovation, it starts today. Everyone knows Restaurant Week, a great promotion that was started years ago and really engaged people with the restaurants of the city – great deals, people got an opportunity to try out restaurants they never had before. Well, we're doing the same thing this year with a to-go twist. So, every participating restaurant will offer at least one takeout and delivery meal for cost of $20.21 – 2021. So, this is a great opportunity to have a great experience yourself, but also to help our restaurants. I want to thank everyone that NYC & Company, they've been doing great work, promoting our restaurant community. They waive the participation fees to make it easier. They've expanded the effort deeply into all five boroughs. This will now be, as a result, the biggest restaurant week in the 29-year history of this event. And that's actually quite amazing given what we've been through – more restaurants than ever, 571 restaurants will be part of Restaurant Week To Go. And that is everywhere in the city, from Sylvia's in Harlem to Denino's on Staten Island, here's a great opportunity. Anyone who wants to see all the participant restaurants go to nycgo.com – I'm sorry, nycgo.com/restaurant-week and check out the list, get out there, and go out to one of these restaurants and purchase from them, get the takeout and delivery from them, call in that order, make a difference, help them keep moving forward. Support your favorite places and find new favorite places too, and that'll be a good thing for everyone.
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 report, 240 patients. And the hospitalization rate, 5.18 per 100,000. Okay. Current new cases – today's number, four – excuse me, 4,743. And number three, percentage of New York City residents testing positive on a seven-day rolling average, 8.44 percent. The bottom line on all of this is that we need to keep fighting while we're getting the vaccination supply we need. When you keep fighting, use the measures that work. We know – we know the masks, we know the social distancing works. New Yorkers have been heroic. We got to keep doing it while we get the vaccine supply and turn this whole situation around.
