Crown Heights’ Medgar Evers College will soon serve as a mass vaccination site for some of the borough’s most vulnerable, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday.
The college on Montgomery Street between Franklin and Bedford avenues will have the capacity to administer 3,000 shots per day, making it among the largest mass vaccination sites in the state once it opens the week of Feb. 24, according to Cuomo.
Medgar Evers is one of two new vaccination hubs earmarked for “socially vulnerable” communities. The site, as well as one at York College in Queens, will utilize a special federal dosage allocation for communities that have been underserved by vaccination efforts so far, according to Cuomo, and appointments will be for borough-residents only.
Early data has shown that white New Yorkers have benefitted far more from the city’s vaccination effort than people of color, with Black New Yorkers only accounting for 11 percent of those presently vaccinated, though they represent nearly a quarter of the city’s total population.
The Medgar Evers site will be managed by both the city and the state, and will be partially staffed by the National Guard.
“These are going to be very large sites. They’re complicated operations, but they’re going to address a dramatic need in bringing the vaccine to the people who need the vaccine most,” Cuomo said.
New York State is set to receive another 5 percent boost in its vaccine allocation from feds, the governor announced Tuesday, which — when paired with other recently announced allocations — marks a 26 percent total increase in vaccine allocation over the past three weeks.
The news of new doses comes as the state races to vaccinate as many people as possible, particularly the “socially vulnerable.”
The new “socially vulnerable” sites in Brooklyn and Queens are a part of the Biden administration’s plan to dramatically ramp up vaccinations as part of a comprehensive national plan to combat the pandemic.
“We’re putting equity front and center in this effort,” said White House Covid-19 Coordinator Jeff Zients during the governor’s press conference. “This announcement today is a demonstration of what that work looks like on the ground.”
Appointments at state-run vaccination sites can be made here.
