Mayor: Give the city more COVID power

Workers who deal with the public in government, building services and nonprofits became eligible to receive COVID vaccines Wednesday as the number of doses given out in the city surpassed the 3 million mark.

“It’s going to help us reach people who serve us and do so much for us,” Mayor de Blasio (top) said. “Again, we could do so much more if we had more freedom to vaccinate and if we have more supply.”

De Blasio has been demanding for weeks that Gov. Cuomo relinquish some state control of its COVID response to allow cities to better address the pandemic on the ground. With indoor dining set to increase to 50% capacity on Friday, de Blasio reiterated that position, but said the city would implement and enforce the rules according to what the state has ordered.

On Tuesday, the mayor said he went so far as to reach out to President Biden’s administration to circumvent state control of vaccine distribution and reported Wednesday that there has been “some progress” regarding his request.

“They haven’t made a decision yet, but I am hopeful,” he said.

De Blasio is the city’s most visible public-facing worker. And with the new vaccine eligibility now in place, he said he intends to get his vaccination soon and that he’ll be getting jabbed with the one-dose Johnson & Johnson shot.

“I want people to know it is safe and I’m going to prove it with my own arm,” he said.

As of Wednesday, 3,019,434 vaccine doses have been administered in the city, but many of those have gone to people living outside the five boroughs. Earlier this month, city officials revealed that 75% of shots administered at the state-run Aqueduct racetrack site in Queens went to people living outside the city. At the state-run Javits Center site, 42% of doses went to out-of-towners.