New York City is offering $100 to each resident to get vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, with Mayor Bill de Blasio saying on Wednesday the inducement was necessary as infections and hospitalizations from the virus were increasing again. “We’re on the verge of administering 10 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in New York City. Now, we’re sweetening the deal,” de Blasio said in a Twitter post. “100 bucks is yours if you get vaccinated. Do it today.”
Nearly five million New Yorkers have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, but the speed of inoculations has slowed. Two million adult New Yorkers are still unvaccinated, according to city records. New York City’s new caseload was 929 on Tuesday, with 108 new hospitalizations compared to 226 new cases and 22 hospitalizations a month earlier.
De Blasio on Monday ordered that all government workers in New York City be vaccinated for COVID or face weekly tests as case counts spike from the Delta variant of the virus. The order came ahead of a September 13 reopening date for all schools in the city as a million students are set to return to the classrooms. On Tuesday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a new recommendation that indoor masking, including for the vaccinated, be reintroduced in all areas of high coronavirus transmissibility and also in all schools as a precaution.
