Gov. Cuomo Announces 189 New Pop-Up Vaccine Sites

By Yehudit Garmaise

   “We have COVID on the run, but now is the time that we have to crush it once and for all,” said Gov. Cuomo, who added New Yorkers can contribute to the demise of COVID by getting vaccinated.

   To deepen the state’s vigorous vaccination efforts, New York is opening 189 “pop-up” vaccine sites in local communities tomorrow, Gov. Cuomo announced this morning in Rochdale Village, Queens.

   Just as twice as many black people and one and a half times as many Latino people died from COVID than did white people, similarly, so far, greater percentages of white people in New York City have gotten vaccinated compared to the percentages of blacks and Latinos, pointed the governor pointed out, as he explained why he is getting “the faith-based community” to advocate the vaccine.

  In addition, New York wants to vaccinate not just those who have had limited access to healthcare in the past, but those who are “vaccine-hesitant,” whom the governor divided into three types. 

  The first type of person who will not get vaccinated, the governor said is the “Superhero,” who feels invulnerable to a virus that has killed 555,000 Americans alone. 

   However, the governor pointed out that, “even superheroes can get [COVID] and give it to someone who is not a superhero.

   “So, don’t just think about yourself. Think about other people.”

   Secondly, “the Scientist” says, “I haven’t seen the full data on the effect of the vaccine, and until I review the full data on the long-term effects,” said the governor.

    “There is more risk in not taking vaccine than in taking the vaccine,” Gov. Cuomo pointed out. “The risk is not just to you, the risk is that you are going to affect your mother, your grandmother, your grandfather, someone else.”

   The third type of vaccine-hesitant person, the governor said, is “the Skeptic,” who distrusts the reassurances of former President Donald Trump, who said the vaccine is safe.

   A longtime critic of the former president, the governor said that he “put together our own New York panel of the best doctors, the best scientists, and we checked the vaccines.

   “For the skeptics, no one is asking you to go first: 10 million New Yorkers have already taken the vaccine. I have taken the vaccine.

 “It is safe, we know that.”

(Mike Groll/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)