Martin Van Buren High School To Be Coronavirus Vaccination Site

QUEENS VILLAGE, QUEENS — A vaccination site will open Sunday at Martin Van Buren High School in Queens Village, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced.

The vaccination site had been scheduled to open Thursday, but the opening was pushed back due to an "outrageous vaccine supply shortage and shipments delayed by storms," de Blasio said in a statement Wednesday night.

"This is the situation we're in," de Blasio told reporters Thursday. "It's been too hand to mouth in general, and then it's been made even worse by the storm."

The Hospital for Special Surgery is running the vaccination site, a City Hall spokesperson told Patch, although a hospital spokesperson said the city is handling appointments.

But the site was not yet listed on New York City's map of vaccination sites as of Thursday afternoon, which is where eligible New Yorkers would book appointments.

Martin Van Buren would be the first permanent vaccination site in Eastern Queens other than a number of chain pharmacies that recently started offering vaccine appointments under a federal program.

A pop-up site at Bayside's Korean Community Services administered 500 first doses of the two-shot vaccine over two days earlier this month.

Local lawmakers have long been calling for a permanent site in Northeast Queens, citing its large population of older adults, but city data released this week shows that area residents have managed to get vaccinated at a higher rate than in most other areas of New York City.