Only 39% Of NYPD Has Received A Coronavirus Vaccine: Report

NEW YORK CITY — More than half of adults in New York City have received the coronavirus vaccine, but one prominent group lags far behind: the NYPD.

Only 39 percent of New York City's cops have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, according to a report by the Washington Post.

The Post's story detailed several large police departments, such as Atlanta, Las Vegas and Phoenix, with low vaccination rates. New York City was among the bottom of the pack, according to the Post's data.

While the Post story highlighted experts who raised public health concerns, Mayor Bill de Blasio appeared to downplay the potential problem when asked about it by Gothamist reporter Sophia Chang.

"Everyone's an individual," he said. "Every officer has a different view. Like many, many New Yorkers, I think there's some people that just wanted to wait a while. There's some people who still have unanswered questions. We've got to keep reaching out and answering the concerns. And I think you'll see more and more people get vaccinated as a result."

About 55 percent of all New York City adults have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine.

The coronavirus pandemic hit the NYPD in spring 2020 and caused a wave of absences and deaths. Early in the pandemic, top police officials even sparred with former Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot after cops tried to commandeer 500,000 protective masks.

But after the pandemic's initial spring wave, the sight of maskless cops became commonplace across a city where most New Yorkers wore them. It even spawned a Twitter account called "NYPD Mask Watch" that documented cops, often in large groups, flouting accepted public health protocols.

Again, de Blasio largely sidestepped the mask issue aside from some mild rebukes.

One cop source highlighted in a New York Post story blamed the low NYPD vaccination rate on the fact that police officers would prefer to take the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Most New Yorkers have received the two-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccines because the J&J vaccine has been in relatively short supply in the city.