NYC COVID-19 Vaccine signage at the entrance of Hillcrest High School, a designated New York City priority vaccination center for people in group 1B, in the Queens borough of New York City, NY, January 11, 2021. Department of Health has estimated that approximately 2000 people are being vaccinated a day at Hillcrest High School; New York City has opened fives sites and plans to add more for the accelerations of COVID-19 vaccine distribution, with priority to group 1B which includes healthcare and essential workers, education workers, first responders, public safety workers, transit worker, and the estimated 1.4 million people aged 75 and older. (Photo by Anthony Behar/Sipa USA)
NY: NYC Mayor de Blasio Visits Vaccination Site In Queens
NEW YORK (77WABC) – New York City is bouncing back to life after the coronavirus pandemic all but closed the city down for well over a year. An increase of vaccination administrations have allowed many businesses to mostly reopen back to normal restrictions, and mask requirements have been relaxed in most places with some exceptions in NYC.
Vaccination Update:
63.7% of adult New Yorkers have received at least one vaccine dose and 54.9% have completed their vaccine series.
-63,443 doses were administered over past 24 hours
-18,441,242 doses administered to date pic.twitter.com/nVab0BTZPx— Archive: Governor Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) May 24, 2021
However not every neighborhood in the Big Apple has thrived, and some are more apprehensive of getting vaccinated.
In the Far Rockaway section of Queens, nearly 460 residents of the seaside neighborhood have died of COVID-19, making it one of New York City’s highest death rates.
No other place in the city has a lower percentage of vaccinated people. According to data from the New York City Health Department, only 23% of people living in Far Rockaway had gotten fully vaccinated, with just 29% getting only one vaccine dose. Compared to the rest of NYC and the country, 49% of people are fully vaccinated.
“We have a good amount of people that still don’t want to get vaccinated, for whatever reason,” said Diana Catalan, a health clinic manager involved in the Far Rockaway inoculation effort whose father, a neighborhood resident, died of the virus in February, in a report from the AP.
The situation shows the challenges fueled by mistrust, misinformation and fear. Far Rockaway is also mostly made of a Black and Hispanic population, and according the AP there has been a general distrust of the medical field because of past mistreatment against those demographics.
