FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM AUGUST 12, 2021 • THE QUEENS COURIER 3
Community leaders urge Rockaway residents to get vaccinated
BY GABRIELE HOLTERMANN
editorial@qns.com
@QNS
With infection rates of the aggressive
and highly contagious COVID-
19 delta variant on the rise, Queens
Borough President Donovan Richards
with Brooklyn Borough President and
Democratic candidate for NYC Mayor
Eric Adams held a press conference at the
city-run vaccination hub on Beach 39th
Street in Edgemere on Aug. 5 to urge residents
to get vaccinated.
Surrounded by public health leaders,
community advocates and elected offi cials
— including state Senator James Sanders,
Assemblyman Khaleel Anderson and
Councilwoman Selvena Brooks-Powers
— Richards and Adams addressed the
low vaccination rate not only in Edgemere
but across the Rockaway Peninsula, which
was one of the hardest-hit areas during
the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Th e vaccination rate in ZIP code 11691,
which encompasses Edgemere and
Far Rockaway, was the lowest
in New York City as of Aug. 3.
Only 38.62 percent of eligible
area residents have received
at least one COVID-19 vaccine
dose, while the total
number of Queens residents
who have received at
least one vaccine dose is
66 percent.
Elected offi cials and
health leaders urged
the vaccine-hesitant
to get the lifesaving
shot to protect themselves and their community
from the delta variant.
Queens Borough President Donovan
Richards reminded everyone to think
back to the height of the COVID-19 pandemic
when St. Johns Episcopal Hospital
had to store the victims of the pandemic
in refrigerated trucks outside the hospital
because the morgue was fi lled to capacity.
“Th ink about those health care workers
who put their lives on the line who
showed up to work every day, who might
have transmitted COVID to their own
family members to save people’s lives and
this community,” Richards said.
Richards noted that it’s a “pivotal
moment in this fi ght” and that getting
the vaccine was a matter of life and death.
He stressed, “Reminder, Far Rockaway
shut down. Reminder, bodies upon bodies
at our hospital. Reminder, people sick
within their homes. Reminder, children
having to learn on Zoom.”
Richards had a strong message for
those who haven’t been inoculated.
“Th is is not about you now. It is not the
time to be selfi sh,” Richards said. “Th is is
about making sure that our children can
get back into the schools in September
and learn. Th is is about protecting your
neighbor. Th is is about protecting your
family members.”
More than 8,000 Queens residents have
died of COVID-19. Th e pandemic highlighted
the healthcare inequity in several
areas in the borough, including Far
Rockaway — one of the most underserved
areas in New York City.
Democratic candidate for NYC Mayor
Eric Adams said elected leaders and
community advocates fought hard to
ensure that residents on the peninsula
have access to vaccination sites.
“Th ey have fought to make sure that
we can have not only stationary locations
like we have here but also the mobile
locations,” Adams said. “Th ey have been
extremely creative of saying, ‘Let’s meet
people where they are so that we can
remove the barriers that are preventing
people from receiving their vaccine.’”
Adams pointed to the pre-existing
fears in Black and Brown communities
surrounding vaccinations, but said it
was time to put the mistrust behind and
mobilize.
“It’s about our families, our friends,
those frontline workers. We must really
get the message out about vaccinations
and getting vaccinated,” Adams said. “We
can’t go back to the days when trailers
were fi lled with bodies, on top of bodies.
I remember those days, and it was one of
the most traumatic experiences.”
Richards and Adams also announced
a new city partnership that builds on the
NYC Vaccine Referral Bonus program in
an eff ort to ramp up vaccinations.
Th e partnership incentivizes local
businesses to refer patrons and community
members for vaccination through
$100 payments, adding to the existing
$100 vaccination incentive.
Additionally, canvassing events in
small business corridors in Brooklyn and
Queens are planned to inform local business
owners of the $100 incentive and the
infl uential role they can play as community
anchors in advocating for their
customers to get vaccinated.
Elected offi cials and health care professionals
agreed that it was a matter
of getting the message out that the
vaccines are safe and eff ective.
Dr. Torian Easterling, fi rst deputy
commissioner of the New York
City Department of Health and
Mental Hygiene, urged those who
are vaccinated to educate those still
ambivalent about the vaccine.
“Share your story. Let your family
member, let your friends know that
these vaccines are safe. We need your
voice,” Easterling said, adding that the
single most important factor they’ve seen
turn the tide on vaccine hesitancy is
conversations.
Dr. Frank Proscia, president of the
Doctor’s Council SEIU, said the COVID-
19 vaccine was the miracle doctors
hoped for while holding the hands of
dying patients during the height of the
pandemic. Referring to the rise in infections
with the delta variant, he said the
pandemic was now the pandemic of the
unvaccinated.
“Unvaccinated individuals currently
comprise 97 percent of all hospitalized
patients for COVID and people
that aregetting sick,” he said. “As we
approach this critical time in the pandemic
response, it is so vital that the
future of New York City is held in the
balance of trying to achieve enough people
being vaccinated to stop COVID in
its tracks.”
State Senator James Sanders addressed
the spread of vaccine misinformation
on social media and suggested that
the Department of Homeland Security
should look into it.
“It’s not that these folk are less rational
than anyone else,” Sanders said about
those who put more trust in social media
than scientists. “It is that they are being
targeted, and we as Americans need to
stand up to Russia or whoever else is targeting
these people and say this is not
going to stand.”
Renee Hastick-Motes, vice president
of External Aff airs of St. John’s Episcopal
Hospital, lost her father to COVID-19
last year and had to watch him get his last
rites on an iPad.
She shared that St. John’s Episcopal,
the only hospital on the peninsula, has
extended the hours of the patient express
center to accommodate residents coming
home late from work.
“We have to understand that this virus
is something that can take our lives,”
Hastick-Motes said.
Assemblyman Anderson was frustrated
that it was still necessary to “remind folks
how critical and important it is to get
vaccinated,” when many Far Rockaway
residents lost their lives to COVID-19.
While he said that it was important
to acknowledge the reasons for the vaccine
hesitancy, he urged residents “to
stop using spaces like Th e Shade Room,
Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, as spaces
of information where we have ‘expert’
that can provide that information based
on knowledge.”
“Th ere is no microchip. Th ere’s no
third-world conspiracy,” Anderson said.
“Get vaccinated to help protect our communities.
So we can get back to a somewhat
normal life and society so you can
enjoy the regular normal activities of
your everyday life without having to wear
a mask.”
Councilwoman Brooks-Powers
encouraged residents to call 311 to fi nd
the nearest pop-up vaccination site or
to go to one of the three permanent vaccination
sites at Th e Joseph P. Addabbo
Family Health Center, St. Johns Episcopal
Hospital or Beach 39th Street.
“From the very beginning, I have said
that the road to recovery will include this
vaccine. Th e road to recoverywill rest
on the community’s response and what
we do as a community to keep ourselves
safe,” Brooks-Powers said. “And so as new
mandates are coming out, I do not want
our community to be shut out.”
Brooklyn Borough President and Democratic candidate for mayor Eric Adams
speaks at the press conference.
Photos by Gabriele Holtermann
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards stresses the importance of the COVID-19 vaccine at the press
conference.
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