editorial
Editorial Turn to the polls to vaccinate NYC
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BRONX TIMES R 12 EPORTER, JAN. 8-14, 2021
Resident at Methodist Home for Nursing & Rehabilitation receives the COVID-19 vaccination
on Jan 5
BY BRONX TIMES
How do you solve a problem like
administering two doses of the
COVID-19 vaccine to 8 million New
Yorkers?
Here’s one idea: Look to the polling
places generally used for elections.
Every November, more than
14,000 designated polling sites across
New York City welcome voters to
cast their ballots. These sites are located
in all kinds of venues — public
schools, community centers, libraries,
government offi ces, even sports
arenas.
While mass vaccination sites and
other distribution points are being
established across the city, utilizing
the 14,000 polling sites for a vaccination
campaign in the spring might be
worth consideration.
We’re not yet at the point where
all 8 million of us can be vaccinated
immediately. Moderna and Pfi zer’s
just-approved vaccines remain available
in limited numbers, though production
is continuing.
That all could change in February,
however, if the FDA gives emergency
approval to Johnson & Johnson’s
COVID-19 vaccine, which (unlike the
Moderna and Pfi zer versions) only
requires one dose per individual.
With three available vaccines by
the spring, millions of doses should
be made available to New York to protect
every person from COVID-19. By
that point, thousands of New Yorkers
should already have been vaccinated.
The effort will then concentrate on
covering everyone else.
The easiest thing for the city to
do would be to establish vaccination
sites at polling places, most of
which are within walking distance
or a short ride away. The city would
need to recruit and train an army of
healthcare professionals and other
volunteers to administer the vaccines.
Nothing about this plan is very
complex or new. In fact, as Manhattan
City Council Member Mark
Levine recently pointed out, we’ve
done it before.
A sudden smallpox outbreak in
1947 propelled the city into embarking
upon a mass vaccination effort
that April. Within about a month, the
city was able to provide the smallpox
vaccine to all of its residents and put
an end to a virus outbreak — utilizing
thousands of healthcare workers
and city employees stationed at dozens
of vaccination sites across the
fi ve boroughs.
While essential workers and frontline
health care professionals should
continue to receive fi rst preference
to get the available vaccines now, the
city must make sure its plan to vaccine
the rest of us is as effective and
swift as possible.
The faster we vaccinate, the faster
we can recover from COVID-1
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