COVID Vaccine: Historic Abyssinian Baptist Becomes First Church In New York City To Administer Shots
CBS New York 1/18/2021 Syndicated Local – CBS New York
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) Throughout the weekend the state’s vaccination program expanded to several sites in underserved communities. On Sunday, for the first time, a church opened its doors for appointments.
That’s right. The historic Abyssinian Baptist Church on West 138th Street filled all 250 appointments, CBS2’s Lisa Rozner reported.
It is in partnership with the state and SOMOS Community Care, which is doing the scheduling.
People were getting vaccinated at the church from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Washington, DC – Over the past 10 months of despair and hardship wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the prospect of an effective vaccine was always seen as the light at the end of the tunnel.
That hope appeared to materialise last month when US health authorities approved two vaccines for emergency use across the country.
But weeks after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, public health experts say immunisation efforts have been glacially slow and haphazard.
“The roll-out of the vaccine has been slower than expected, but it’s also frankly been chaotic,” said Kevin Schulman, a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California.
New Yorkers flocked to the Brooklyn Army Terminal on January 14 after a WhatsApp message claiming the facility had extra COVID-19 vaccines went viral.This footage, shot by Stephen Lurie, shows people lined up for blocks. Others waited in cars.The WhatsApp message said over 410 doses of the vaccine needed to be given out within four hours and promised the terminal would take any “walk ins” aged 18 and over.New York City mayoral press secretary Bill Neidhardt swiftly took to Twitter to debunk the message, writing there was “NOT available vaccine for people without appointments.”“This was misinformation and the notification did not come from the NYC gov,” Neidhardt wrote. “We are sending people to Brooklyn Army Terminal to ask people in line to return home if they don’t have appointments.” Credit: Stephen Lurie via Storyful
NEW YORK — New York state’s COVID-19 positivity rate and deaths fell slightly Friday as officials continue to wrestle with a “limited supply” of vaccine and a more contagious variant