With all the happenings at Mount Sinai Queens Hospital three blocks away, who needs to be convinced that Covid’s “real” around here anyway? People can see it for themselves.
From March to June 2020, the neighborhood was rocked by ambulance sirens day and night. Doctors and nurses could be spotted wearing hazmat and personal protective equipment through the windows of the emergency room. A huge refrigerated semi-truck was dumped on the driveway of the ambulance entrance and prepared to receive dead bodies. A side street was closed and two long triage tents erected to keep Covid carriers separate from patients inside the hospital. All around the premises, signs read “Danger,” “Do Not Enter,” or simply implied “Just Stay Away.” This was anything but a fear-mongering movie scene.
And that’s why, in this part of Astoria, Queens, 92.4% of the locals got vaccinated against Covid-19. There was too much “reality” around to ignore the risk.
According to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the 11102 zip code has produced a higher rate of death and infection among its denizens than the City average. Since the start of the pandemic, one in six people have been diagnosed with Covid. One hundred and sixty-five have perished.
But is that deadly enough for “The White Rose” denialists to call “genuine”? Guess not.
Photo by Rick Stachura. November 9, 2021.
A sticker posted by “The White Rose,” a group of anti-vaxxer Covid-denialists. It’s outside the entrance to the building that houses P.S. 234 (the School of Performing Arts and Technology) and I.S. 235Q (the Academy for New Americans) on 30th Street in Astoria, Queens.
Apparently the Rose likes proselytizing near elementary schools. You can read more about their background, and see another sticker they hung up nearby a few weeks ago here.
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