New York City to offer $100 to get vaccinated at city-run sites as Delta variant fears grow

New York City residents getting their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine at a city-run site will get $100 from the mayor’s office in a measure to defeat the Delta variant.

The Delta variant is believed to be much more transmissible than previous iterations of the virus.

The announcement was made at a press conference held by the mayor’s office, which was streamed online.

“STARTING FRIDAY: Get your first dose of the #COVID19 vaccine at a City run site and you’ll get $100. It’s that simple,” the mayor’s office also tweeted.

According to data from New York City’s Health Department, 40 per cent of the city’s population has not received a single vaccine dose. More than 54 per cent of the city is fully vaccinated.

Manhattan is the most-vaccinated borough with at least 70 per cent of the population having had one dose of a vaccine. The least-vaccinated borough is Bronx, which has 50 per cent of its population jabbed with one dose.

Forty-eight per cent of white people have had one vaccine dose in New York City with 34 per cent of Black people and 46 per cent of Latino people having one dose of the vaccine.

As a state, New York has had 56 per cent of its population fully vaccinated. Governor Andrew Cuomo followed the trend of state’s leaders offering financial incentives to get people vaccinated. If you got a Covid jab, you could be entitled to one free ticket to play the state lottery, with a grand prize of $5 million.

This push to get people vaccinated comes as the rate of vaccine uptake is lagging nationally, despite the protections it provides.

On 7 July, the director of the CDC, Dr Rachel Wolensky, said that preliminary data showed that 99.5 per cent of deaths were among the unvaccinated. She also expressed concern about the Delta variant, which is believed to be the most contagious strain of Covid yet.

New Yorkers can book their vaccine appointments here.