28 THE QUEENS COURIER • SEPTEMBER 16, 2021 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
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Title: Queens College among best colleges in The
Princeton Review 2022 edition for 30th consecutive
year
Summary: For the 30th consecutive year, Queens
College in Flushing has been named one of the country’s
best institutions for undergraduate education by The
Princeton Review.
Reach: 9,504 (as of 09/13/2021)
The key to success
Th e “Key to NYC” vaccine mandate
for various businesses — including restaurants,
gyms and arenas — has been
in place for nearly a month, but Monday,
Sept. 13, marked the fi rst day the city
began enforcing the mandate.
Up until now, business owners have
been allowed to operate on a sort of
honors system, checking their customers
to ensure that they’ve received the
COVID-19 vaccine. But as of Sept. 13,
they’ll face serious fi nancial penalties
from the city if they don’t properly
enforce the mandate.
Not long aft er Mayor Bill de Blasio
announced the Key to NYC program,
some disgruntled business owners protested
a decision; some went as far as to
pursue legal action. Th ey charged the
mandate was “capricious and arbitrary,”
that it didn’t equally impact businesses
and placed an undue burden on them to
control the behavior of others.
And there’s a point to these arguments,
but they willfully ignore the reality
of the situation.
We’re nine months into the vaccination
eff ort in New York, and still only
61% of the city’s nearly 9 million residents
are fully vaccinated. COVID-19
cases have increased over the last couple
of months, even with the vaccine, due
to the proliferation of the delta variant
among unvaccinated New Yorkers.
Aft er the vaccination eff ort peaked
in April and May, the numbers started
dropping — so the city began off ering
all kinds of lucrative incentives, even
cash payments, to get people vaccinated.
Still, many unvaccinated New Yorkers
remained stubborn, having made their
judgment against the vaccine based on
the mountain of misinformation heaped
upon them on social media and ignorant
loudmouths on cable news.
Th en in July and August, the state and
city began mandating the vaccine for
certain employees and places of business.
It was the last resort, as eff orts to
get New Yorkers vaccinated voluntarily
weren’t keeping up with the spread of
this highly infectious, oft en deadly virus.
Businesses in New York City must
understand that continuing to let people
play the honors system with their health
is going to make overcoming the pandemic
damn near impossible.
Th e longer COVID-19 festers and
mutates, the greater the chances that the
virus becomes vaccine resistant. Th at
would potentially throw society back to
square one — to business restrictions
and closures, to public lockdowns, to
prolonged mask mandates.
Do we want to beat COVID-19, or do
we want to suff er with it forever?
Photo by Dean Moses
New York City government began enforcing the “Key to NYC” vaccine mandate for indoor businesses on
Sept. 13, 2021.