This story was originally published on January 21, 2021
New York City has brought a number of new vaccine hubs and facilities online as it ramps up for mass vaccinations after a rocky early rollout of the process. But even robust infrastructure won't help the city if it runs out of doses of the scarce vaccine — which it is expected to as early as the end of the week.
A new 24/7 vaccine site opened last week alongside Brooklyn Army Terminal, a former military supply base that is now used as a commercial hub. One of the first such facilities in the city, it was originally constructed for COVID-19 testing but has been retrofitted to vaccinate up to 2,000 people per day when fully operational. Each borough will have a similar facility with an additional mega-site expected to open at Citi Field in Queens within the week.
Patients receiving their vaccines on the first few days of operations didn't seem to mind the series of steps involved, including a mandatory and somewhat complicated reservation system, a wait in line, and registration.
Jennifer Weyburn, an educator, said her friends and colleagues walked her through the appropriate steps to register.
"I mean it wasn't intuitive, but you figured it out," she said.
Authorities hoped the reservation process would keep lines from forming or crowds from gathering. Still, wait times were hours long at facilities in Staten Island over the weekend, according to SILive. Patients at the Brooklyn site reported quick wait times by comparison.
Rebecca Wexler, a teacher, said the entire process took her about an hour and 15 minutes from start to finish.
"It was flawless for me. I'm surprised and happy to say," she said.
There was also a consistent flow of curious New Yorkers without appointments wandering up to inquire about the shot.
"It's by appointment. And we're trying to reiterate that, but of course, people are used to using our testing sites as walk-in only," said Dr. Jonathan Jimenez, medical director of community testing and vaccination sites with NYC Health + Hospitals.
Once inside, patients are escorted to one of 23 pods, where they will meet with a nurse practitioner to receive their injection. Brooklyn Army Terminal offers the Moderna vaccine, which, according to the CDC, is 94.1 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 illness. After they receive the shot, patients are herded toward a waiting area, where they are observed by medical professionals for any reaction to the drug. The CDC recommends 15 to 30 minutes of observation, depending on medical history.
After receiving her first dose of the Moderna vaccine, Weyburn said she was elated to receive the shot earlier than anticipated. But she wasn't ready to let her guard down yet.
"I guess the big thing is not to get over-elated and to keep on doing social distancing, and wearing masks," she said.
Especially as more New Yorkers become eligible for the coronavirus vaccine, facilities like the one at Brooklyn Army Terminal will play a crucial part in New York City's strategy to ramp up vaccinations. But Mayor Bill de Blasio said shortages of doses could impair those efforts. The city already canceled or rescheduled some 23,000 vaccine appointments due to inadequate supply, exacerbated by a delivery delay of the Moderna vaccine, the Associated Press reported.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he expects doses across the state to run dry within days.
Close to 908,000 people across the state have received their first dose of the vaccine, and 136,500 have received their second dose, according to New York state's COVID-19 tracker. Even so, the pressure is on officials to continue the rollout uninterrupted as hospitalizations creep up to levels not seen since the early days of the pandemic.
This story was photographed and edited by Douglas C. Murray
As of March 2022, almost 200 Anti-LGBT+ bills have been introduced in state governments across the country — especially directed at the transgender community. Human Rights Campaign State Legislative Director and Senior Counsel Cathryn Oakley joined Cheddar News to discuss the deluge of legislation. "Unfortunately we are seeing these bills come at transgender youth from every conceivable direction," she said. "Every support that a trans kid has, whether that's their parents, whether that's their family, whether that's their teachers or their guidance counselors or their coaches, whether it's their teammates or the librarians and the books that they read, whether it's curriculum, whether it's even just the ability to acknowledge that LGBTQ people have existed throughout history and are important in the fabric of modern American society. The bills that we are seeing filed across the country are targeting all of those pieces."
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week seemed to have put out a video that urged Ukrainians to put down their arms and surrender to Russia. It was later revealed that it was a “deepfake,” a computer-generated video to mimic the Ukrainian leader. Cheddar News speaks with security expert Morgan Wright about how the technology is being used in the war in Ukraine.
After scrutiny over the negative impact on the mental health of children, social media apps have begun adding stricter limitations to parental controls. Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization focusing on recommendations for entertainment platforms, joined Cheddar News to talk about the changes, why they might not be enough, and what parents can do to help. "It's almost that the companies — whether they're Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, or whatever — have to start the process from the beginning of designing the product," he said. "They have to be much more clear about age verification so that a 12-year-old and 11-year-old can't get on there." Steyer also pushed for federal legislation to reign in the issue.
As Big Tech companies from the U.S. like Google and Apple managed to build market dominance overseas, the European Union has decided to curb what it sees as monopolistic growth. Greg Martin, the co-founder of Rainmaker Securities, joined Cheddar News to talk about how the impact of the antitrust regulations being adopted. "I think there's a lot of great outcomes here, but those will be far down the road [because] I do think there's some interoperability things that need to be worked out technologically," he said. "But it's going to be really good ultimately for the consumer in my opinion."
Tenicka Boyd is a digital creator making content that reflects her two passions: activism and style. The TikTok star joined Cheddar News to talk about her platform and new looks this Spring. Boyd admitted that at first she wanted to remain anonymous on the social media platform before finding her passion. "I just joined TikTok hoping that no one would find me, and I started creating colorful content," she said. "I didn't know that you could monetize this and really do it full time, and I just followed my passion because I realized that you can have multiple different lives and do multiple different things."
Catching you up on what you need to know on March 25, 2022, with Ukrainian forces retaking Kyiv, 300 deaths reported from the bombing of a theater used as a shelter in Mariupol, U.S. regulators ditch a climate review of natural gas projects, the 94th Academy Awards, and more.
North Korea says it test-fired its biggest intercontinental ballistic missile under the orders of leader Kim Jong Un, who vowed to continue expanding his nuclear arsenal while preparing for a “long-standing confrontation” with the United States.
Ukrainian authorities in the besieged ruins of Mariupol say that about 300 people died when a Russian airstrike blew up a theater where hundreds of civilians were sheltering.
