'The summer of New York City': Mayor plans July 1 reopening

New York City's mayor declared the five boroughs would fully reopen this summer.

This report produced by Zachary Goelman.

“We are ready to bring New York City back, fully, on July first.” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday said life in the Big Apple would finally get back to normal this summer after more than a year of coronavirus-related closures.

“All systems, go.

Because you’ve earned it.” De Blasio said the biggest reason for reopening the most populous city in the U.S. was the success of its vaccination efforts.

Six-point-three million coronavirus vaccines have been administered in a city with over eight million residents.

"And we can now set this goal because we're moving forward, constantly.

More and more vaccinations.

Fewer and fewer infections.

Thank God." Today, Manhattan's Jacob Javits convention center is vaccinating thousands of New Yorkers a day.

Last year, it was a field hospital.

The pandemic was particularly harrowing for New York, once the epicenter of the outbreak.

This time last year, hospitals were overwhelmed.

The state governor was pleading for supplies.

The city parked refrigerated trucks on a Brooklyn pier to store the bodies of victims. A Reuters aerial drone captured mass graves dug on Hart Island, in the Bronx.

A government web site puts New York City’s death toll at 32,000.

De Blasio on Thursday prefaced his reopening announcement as the light at the end of the tunnel.

“We can do this July 1st.

We all got a little bit of work to do, but we can get there together." He said restaurants, bars, theaters, and beaches would all be open, and perhaps most importantly, tourism would be back.

“This summer is going to be the summer of New York City."