'It is safe': Gov. Cuomo urges skeptical NYers in hard-hit neighborhoods to get vaccine

Gov. Andrew Cuomo visited a vaccine pop-up site at the William Reid Houses in East Flatbush, where he underscored the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine and urged people to get it.

News 12 Staff

Jan 23, 2021, 11:03 PM

Updated 1,428 days ago

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo visited a vaccine pop-up site at the William Reid Houses in East Flatbush on Saturday, where he underscored the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine and urged people to get it.
The governor says one of the biggest issues the state is facing is to convince people in some of the hardest hit neighborhoods to actually get the vaccine.
He says there is a lack of trust and lack of accessibility, which is why they are focusing on getting sites open at NYCHA complexes across the city.
Cuomo says New York still needs help from the federal government.
The governor says all of the vaccines that were sent for weeks one through five have been used, and the state is now starting to receive a total of 240,000 doses for the next week.
He says 7 million people are eligible for the vaccine, but at the current amount of weekly doses the city is getting, it will take months to vaccine everyone who is currently eligible.
He says the focus right now is on the elderly, especially those in lower-income communities, who he says are eligible but skeptical. “It is safe,” Cuomo says.
“Yes, the Black community in particular has reasons to be skeptical….but that’s not the cases with this vaccine, take the vaccine. It will save lives, it can save your life.”
Cuomo says they are working with churches and housing authorities across the state. He says all 33 NYCHA senior developments will have the vaccine.
Cuomo announced 8,802 hospitalizations and 144 deaths across the state with more than 13,000 new positive cases on Friday.