School Vax Sites To Return For 5-11 Year Olds' 2nd Doses: Mayor

NEW YORK, NY — The more than 26,000 children who got a COVID-19 vaccine at one of the city's schools last week will be able to get their second dose on school grounds, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The mayor announced Tuesday that the city will expand its school vaccination program after seeing a higher-than-expected demand for the shots at public schools, which opened for one day each last week to vaccinate 5 to 11 year olds.

The expansion will include a new round of the sites starting Nov. 30 aimed at giving second doses of the vaccine. City officials originally planned to only have first doses available at the school sites.

"We're going to do a full second pass at all elementary schools," de Blasio said. "...We go to where the people are, we go to where the children are, we go to where the families are — this has been the magic of the New York City vaccination effort."

The school vaccine effort will also expand to charter schools and include extra days at areas where there was high demand last week, the mayor said.

The "charter school blitz" will begin Friday and continue into next week.

The extra days will roll out at 30 public schools that saw high demand this Wednesday, and another 30 on Thursday, de Blasio said. Last week, the mayor said three school districts across the five boroughs — Brooklyn's District 15 and Manhattan's districts 1 and 2 — were struggling to meet demand.

A total of 72,000 vaccines have been distributed to children ages 5 to 11 in New York City since the shot was approved for the age group earlier this month. A third of those have been at school sites, de Blasio said.

A schedule of the school vaccine sites can be found here.