NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — The Omicron variant is now the dominant pressure of coronavirus in New York, and Mayor Bill de Blasio says New Yorkers want to maneuver simply as quick because the virus.
“It will likely be a troublesome few weeks, and we have to perceive that, and we have to do every little thing potential to deal with that,” de Blasio stated Tuesday. “However look, that is going to be a short lived actuality.”
READ MORE: Mayor-Elect Eric Adams Cancels Plans For Jan. 1 Inaugural Ceremony Due To Omicron Concerns
The mayor stated one other shutdown would “devastate” town, and vaccinations stay the best way ahead.
“Vaccination is the best way to guard ourselves in opposition to Omicron. Vaccination is the best way to proceed our restoration. Vaccination is the best way for folks to dwell their lives once more. Vaccination equals freedom,” he stated.
WATCH: Mayor De Blasio Declares COVID Booster Incentive
So he stated town will provide $100 incentives for booster pictures between now and the tip of the yr at city-run or SOMOS Group Care websites.
“It’s going to make you are feeling so much safer, so much higher that you just received the booster. And also you’ll have some extra cash in your pocket on the similar time. That’s going to be an excellent feeling, notably this time of yr,” he stated.
He additionally stated discussions are underway about probably including the booster as a part of his vaccine mandates.
FIND TESTING SITES: Click here for New York City’s testing site locator, together with cellular websites and at-home appointments
AVOID THE LINES: Click here for NYC Health+Hospitals testing wait times
COVID VACCINE
CBS2’s John Dias spoke with folks ready in line to get examined at a cellular website outdoors the Manhattanville Homes in Harlem.
“I’ve been coming to this van for each two weeks for months, and I simply stroll out and in and it takes 5 minutes,” Harlem resident Amanda Jacobsmeyer advised Dias.
Now, due to excessive demand, it took her practically two hours to get a check at this website. However she felt it’s price it earlier than her flight to Nevada.
READ MORE: Biden To Offer Half A Billion At-Home COVID Tests As Omicron Surges
“I don’t wish to get on a airplane with a bunch of individuals and be the bottom zero of an outbreak,” she stated.
Not distant at Harlem Hospital, the road for testing stretched an entire metropolis block and wrapped across the nook, the place Dias discovered Darniece Foster and her absolutely vaccinated household getting examined.
“Two years in, for it to be an extended line for testing is ridiculous,” Foster stated.
She stated they have been there due to an absence of testing in metropolis faculties.
“I might like to rejoice Christmas with my household, and I simply wish to be protected,” she stated. “Quite a bit is going on within the faculties, the place like a 3rd of their class is out with both quarantining or COVID.”
Her daughter stated it has been virtually a yr since her college examined her.
“After all of us received vaccinated, the college thought it was OK to cease testing, due to the protection the vaccinations supplied,” stated daughter Lea Hines.
Metropolis leaders say solely seven faculties are presently closed, out of 1,600, as a result of COVID.
CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
The town has 89 testing websites all through the 5 boroughs and is adding 23 more this week, together with in neighborhood settings like faculties and libraries. However from Brooklyn to the Bronx, Dias continued to seek out lengthy traces at testing websites in each borough.
New York Metropolis Council Well being Committee Chair Mark Levine tweeted, “Let’s deliver Javits Heart again, however this time as a mass testing website.”
Let’s deliver Javits Heart again however this time as a mass testing website.
— Mark D. Levine (@MarkLevineNYC) December 21, 2021
In Queens, elected leaders referred to as on town so as to add extra testing places all through the western a part of the borough, saying the mayor’s latest additions aren’t sufficient.
“Right here in Astoria, we’d like a brick and mortar website. One that’s completely open,” New York State Meeting member Zohran Mamdani stated. “What we’re doing now’s a recipe for catastrophe.”
MORE NEWS: While Many Shows Have Shut Down At Least Temporarily Due To COVID, Billy Joel And Others Play On
Additionally Tuesday, Mayor-elect Eric Adams introduced he’ll forgo his planned inauguration ceremony at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, citing Omicron considerations.
