X

Yankee Stadium to Open as COVID-19 Vaccination Site on Friday

Jenna CiccotelliAnalyst IFebruary 3, 2021

Baseball fans line up outside Yankee Stadium before the start of an opening day baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Baltimore Orioles, Thursday, March 28, 2019, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Seth Wenig/Associated Press

Yankee Stadium will open its doors Friday—to serve as a COVID-19 mass vaccination site.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the plan Wednesday.

According to Carl Campanile and Nolan Hicks of the New York Post, the Bronx has had the highest COVID-19 rates in New York City "in recent weeks," and the vaccination site will only be open to residents of the borough.

Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets, was previously announced as a vaccination site, but that has been postponed because of vaccine shortages, per Campanile and Hicks.

Elsewhere in MLB, the Oakland Athletics announced Wednesday that their home stadium, the Oakland Coliseum, will open as the "first federally operated coronavirus vaccination supersite in the country." According to Jessica Kleinschmidt of NBC Sports, the site has a goal of administering at least 6,000 vaccines daily.

Marlins Park in Miami, Petco Park in San Diego, Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Minute Maid Park in Houston and Fenway Park in Boston are the other MLB ballparks open for vaccinations in accordance with state guidelines, per David Adler of MLB.com.

A number of NFL stadiums have opened their doors for the same purpose, including the New England Patriots' Gillette Stadium and the Carolina Panthers' Bank of America Stadium.