New York, Jan 23 (EFE) .- The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, announced this Saturday the expansion of vaccination centers throughout the state that he hopes will impact black and Latino communities, the most affected by the pandemic.
The announcement comes after the state and the homonymous city exhausted all their vaccines and 15 centers were closed, and it will not be until early next week that the new shipment of 250,400 doses is expected to arrive.
“By the time the vaccines arrive, our goal is to put them in (people’s) arms as soon as possible,” he said, adding that “250,400 doses per week is not enough.”
So far, more than a million people in the state have received their first dose of the vaccine.
Other states are also facing vaccine shortages, forcing health facilities to cancel thousands of appointments.
Cuomo urged New Yorkers to trust the vaccine, not to underestimate the virus, recalling that 144 people died in this state on Friday due to the pandemic.
“If we let our guard down, the virus will grow and defeat us,” he warned during a press conference in which he announced that vaccination sites will be expanded to the 33 senior centers under the New York City Public Housing Authority, a other housing complexes, more than 300 churches and cultural centers.
He also indicated that the positive rate in the state is 5.26% while in the city it is 5.71%.
A total of 8,802 patients remained in hospitals today due to the pandemic, 44 fewer than on Friday.
He recalled that the black community has been twice more affected by the covid than whites and Latinos, 1.5 times more.
According to Cuomo, death rates in these communities are higher because racism and discrimination have persisted in the healthcare system for years.
“We have seen great disparities in the health system and that is why they die. It is a fact,” said the Democrat and then stressed that the vaccine will save lives.
“When the black and Latino communities had high death rates, they had less access to evidence” contrary to the wealthy, he said.
The pandemic “has created a different dynamic in this country: I call it a low tide in the United States” which has allowed us to see “racism, discrimination and inequality in the background,” said the governor.
“The covid has only exacerbated that problem. The undeniable fact is that it has killed black and Latino communities at a higher rate than the white community,” he said.
“I understand that there is a level of skepticism about the vaccine given the way it was handled by the previous (federal) Administration, but that is why New York did its own review,” he said, insisting to New Yorkers that it is safe and that they must be vaccinated. EFE
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