Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn Opens New York State’s Largest Vaccination Site Today

By Yehudit Garmaise

  “The vaccine is the weapon that will win this war,” said Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday, when he announced that today New York state opened its largest vaccination site at Medgar Evers College, which is located at 1650 Bedford Ave. in Crown Heights.

   “This vaccination site can do 3,000 vaccines per day and 21,000 vaccines per week,” said Gov. Cuomo. “Plus, the MTA is going to offer special transportation so people can easily get to the site.”

   Although the Brooklyn mass vaccination center is up and running, the governor said that, like all the other states in the country, the state’s weekly allocation of 300,000 doses a week is not enough to vaccinate the 10 million New Yorkers who are now eligible to get their shots.

    “The federal government has been increasing supply week to week," the governor said. "The president announced last week by the end of July there will enough vaccines for all Americans.”

    The fact that twice as many blacks and one and a half as many Hispanics died from COVID than did whites revealed another obstacle to vaccinating Brooklyn, which is that COVID discriminates, Gov. Cuomo said.

   “Blacks, Hispanics, and poor communities did not have the same health services, they had higher preexisting conditions, and they had higher infection rates of COVID, but less testing,” Gov. Cuomo said. 

    As a result of the “racism, injustice, and inequities,” that COVID revealed, Gov. Cuomo said that the state would now like to “correct for the injustices we saw perpetrated by COVID,” by providing priority appointments for one week for the surrounding communities.

   As the vaccine supply and availability increases, many New Yorkers remain hesitant and unsure about whether to get their shots.

  Some in Orthodox Jewish communities have worried that the development of the vaccines was rushed, and that the vaccine could interfere with fertility, however, yesterday Dave A. Chokshi, MD, New York City’s health commissioner and Health + Hospitals CEO Mitch Katz, MD, reassured Jewish reporters that those fears are unfounded.

    “The two vaccines that have been authorized so far are safe, effective, and lifesaving,” Dr Chokshi repeated. "The technology underlying the vaccine has been under development for several years. There were no shortcuts taken with regards to the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines.                                                                                               

     "In addition, no evidence from all of the studies done on the vaccines and the real-world experiences show that the vaccines have any negative effect on fertility.”

       Dr. Katz also bolstered community trust of the vaccines by adding, “Several prominent rabbis have pointed out that our tradition is very strong on protecting life and taking those measures that protect one’s own health and the health of one’s community.”

(Photo Don Pollard// Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)