NYC Coronavirus Positivity Tops 6 Percent As Vaccinations Ramp Up

New York City NY

17 December, 2020

3:20 PM

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NEW YORK CITY — The coronavirus positivity rate in New York City hit 6 percent amid increased fears of a potential citywide lockdown. Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday called it an "unacceptable" number. "We need to get under 5 (percent) and keep going down for there," he said. "Six percent is not acceptable. We've got a lot of work to do." The problematic percentage was measured mere days after the arrival of a coronavirus vaccine in the city's hospitals — a milestone that de Blasio and health officials hailed as the last salvo in the pandemic fight. But vaccinations were doled out slowly since the first shot on Monday. De Blasio said 3,600 hospital workers received the vaccine on Wednesday, bringing the three-day total to roughly 5,200. He promised those numbers would soon increase dramatically as health officials "These numbers are going to grow rapidly with each day as the approach to the vaccine gets refined more each day and more and more people are brought into play," he said. "Again, first few days is going to be a slow and steady ramp-up. Then you're going to see a takeoff." The city has received 42,900 doses of Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, de Blasio said. He said there are currently too many unknowns to say for certain when all New Yorkers would be able to receive the vaccine, but June is a "good working assumption." Mitchell Katz, who heads the city's Health + Hospitals, said all employees in his public health system will be vaccinated in three weeks.