18 THE QUEENS COURIER • JANUARY 28, 2021 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
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VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS
JOSHUA A. SCHNEPS
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ZACHARY GEWELB
NIRMAL SINGH
JACOB KAYE
ANGELICA ACEVEDO, JENNA BAGCAL, KATRINA MEDOFF,
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CLIFF KASDEN, SAMANTHA SOHMER, ELIZABETH ALONI
DEBORAH CUSICK
CELESTE ALAMIN
MARIA VALENCIA
VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS
JOSHUA A. SCHNEPS
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File photo by Carlo Allegri/REUTERS
The enactment of the Defense Production Act will play a big role in vaccine production and distribution.
Story: Mega Millions ticket worth $1 million sold at
Astoria convenience store
Summary: The New York Lottery announced
Saturday morning that a second prize Mega Millions
lottery ticket worth $1 million was sold at an
Astoria convenience store.
Reach: 34,452 (as of 1/25/21)
A plan, at long last
You can mark Jan. 21, 2021, as the date
in which the country fi nally began the
great turnaround against the COVID-19
pandemic.
Th ough the virus continues running
rampant and killing thousands nationwide,
last Th ursday marked the real
beginning of the end of this health crisis
because of the actions of President Joe
Biden.
Th e new president signed a number
of executive orders which, eff ectively,
nationalize the pandemic before us —
something that needed to happen when it
fi rst arrived in America last year, but that
Biden’s predecessor never cared enough
to accomplish.
Th e biggest order that Biden signed is
the enactment of the Defense Production
Act, which mobilizes the entire country
— public and private industries alike
— to make whatever is necessary to stop
the disease in its tracks, including vaccine
production and distribution.
For New York City and state, the vaccine
situation is dire. Th e city’s vaccine
hubs have closed because the supply isn’t
there to meet the high demand.
COVID-19 cases, meanwhile, continue
to be very high, though they have leveled
off following the holiday surge. Numbers
remain high in Brooklyn and Queens,
though.
Over a seven-day period between
Jan. 15 and Jan. 20, approximately 352
New York City residents lost their lives
to COVID-19, according to data from
the governor’s office. But 238 of those
fatalities occurred in Brooklyn and
Queens, both of which were hard hit
during the first wave of the pandemic
last spring.
And the presence of the more-infectious
variant of COVID-19 detected in Europe
looms a menacing threat that could cause
yet another surge if left unchecked.
Meanwhile, there are reports of millions
of COVID-19 doses nationwide still
in storage that have yet to be distributed
largely due to local and state disconnects
with the federal government.
But those disconnects were the byproduct
of the previous administration’s failure
to chart a united front against COVID-
19 from the start — and leaving most of
the response to the individual states. Th at
caused more problems resulting from
the lack of uniformity in mission and
scale, and it resulted in the United States
becoming the global epicenter of the pandemic.
Biden’s executive orders fi nally put the
responsibility for handling this health crisis
where it should have been from the
start: in the hands of the federal government,
with its vast resources and authority
to get whatever is needed to resolve the
pandemic and save lives.
It will take time for Biden’s actions to
take eff ect, and for New York City to get
the vaccine doses necessary to meet the
demand and overcome COVID-19.
While there’s a long way to go, at least
now we have a path forward to victory —
and a president who wants what’s best for
New York and America.
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