The West New York COVID-19 vaccination site at Memorial High School inoculated over 11,000 people during their first week of operations, Mayor Gabriel Rodriguez said this morning.
“This site represents a site that is extremely efficient and accessible to our community. Not everybody in our community has vehicles to go to the other mega sites, which are also running great, and obviously we have many people in the community that can’t wait standing on lines for three or four hours,” Rodriguez said during at interview at the site.
“And obviously our elderly population is a population that comes with wheelchairs, some of our bedridden populations – this site represents a place that’s near to their homes, that they know very, very well, and most of importantly of all, that they feel safe getting vaccinated.”
At the end of last month, it came to light that Holy Name Medical Center would be allocating 14,000 vaccine doses for the North Hudson municipality.
Their first day up and running was Good Friday, April 2nd, which saw 1,200 people get vaccinated, followed by 2,200 the next day, and over 11,000 during the first week.
This was of course a welcome change for Rodriguez, who said at the beginning of March that less than three percent of West New Yorkers had been vaccinated.
He also pointed out that since their doses have gone up exponentially, the site has drawn appointments from residents of North Bergen, Guttenberg, Union City, Secaucus, and beyond.
As to the why Holy Name decided to get involved, Rodriguez explained that a simple conversation with President/CEO Michael Maron went a long way.
Employees of the Town of West New York and West New York Board of Education are also involved in the process to ensure that everything at the site continues to run smoothly.
“It’s a true collaboration, in every sense of the form, in the name of helping our community – who deserves it,” Rodriguez concluded.
Located at 5501 Park Ave., the site is open Monday through Thursday and Saturday. Anyone seeking to make an appointment can sign up here.
