As De Blasio Presses Mandates, NYC COVID Vaccinations Still Drop

NEW YORK CITY — At the height of New York City's coronavirus vaccination effort, more than 120,000 shots went into eager arms in a single day.

Nearly four months later, a day passed with just over 7,000 New Yorkers rolling up their sleeves — the lowest number since February, according to city health department data.

The low point is all the more troubling because the highly contagious delta variant of coronavirus is spreading. COVID-19 cases in the city quadrupled in a month and hospitalizations, though not near danger levels, are up.

Amid this backdrop, Mayor Bill de Blasio and other elected officials have increasingly pushed for strict vaccine mandates to stop the delta variant's spread.

"I keep saying we're climbing the ladder in terms of more and more mandates, tougher and tougher measures to make sure that people are vaccinated," he said Friday on "CNN Newsroom." "What's going to happen, bluntly, is that folks who are vaccinated are going to be able to experience all the things that they love in the life of this city, in this country. And folks who are not vaccinated are going to find that too many things that they want to do, they can't do unless they are vaccinated."

Mandates have to make up a lot of ground, city vaccine data shows.

About 29 percent of New York City adults — or nearly 2 million people — have yet to receive a dose of coronavirus vaccine, data shows.

The percentage is higher in several prominent city institutions — about 57 percent of NYPD personnel, or 31,000 total, are completely unvaccinated, according to data reported by the New York Post.

Likewise, 45 percent of FDNY personnel are unvaccinated, the Post reported. About 30 percent of health care workers at city-run hospitals haven't received doses, officials said.

De Blasio's vaccination-or-testing mandate for city government workers aims to boost the number of shots, as well as set a precedent for non-government institutions.

But it takes effect Sept. 13 and his announcement doesn't appear to have moved the needle.

Daily vaccinations hovered at 17,000 per day during July, but dropped to 14,565 on a seven-day average after de Blasio double downed on mandates, data shows.

Just 7,095 doses were administered in the entire city on Thursday, according to data.