-
According to a Facebook post, there are more than 400 extra doses of vaccines available in New York for boarding appointments to be used before 7 p.m.
-
Swarms of New Yorkers lined up in Brooklyn’s Grand Army Terminal to search for the vaccine, but officials said there are not enough people without appointments.
-
The mayor’s office told Insider that the city has a “variety” of ways to make sure excess doses are used, adding that this vaccine is open 24 hours a day.
-
Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Related: What it’s like to get the COVID-19 vaccine
Crowds of New Yorkers rushed to a vaccination site in Brooklyn after a Facebook message said Thursday afternoon that there were COVID-19 shots that needed to be used up quickly.
A message that reads, “PLEASE SHARE: We must dispense 410+ doses in the next 4 hours at Brooklyn Army Terminal (by 7pm), and take everyone aged 18 or older, or earlier than scheduled”, has been shared and retold across parent groups and other Facebook circles.
But when crowds in cars and on foot descended on the Brooklyn Army Terminal, the mayor’s office tweeted that the shots were reserved for people with appointments, and the Facebook message was a ‘false’ rumor.
At the same time, people in the queue, including Hannah Freedman, travel editor of Insider’s, who arrived around 5 p.m., said they were informed wash an option, and was sent in a separate queue for savings surveys. The line eventually spread as doctors and police stepped down, saying there were no more shots.
Mixed messages
About 500 people were in line at the Brooklyn Army Terminal around 5 p.m., author and columnist Jessica Valenti wrote in a tweet that had since been removed.
Another Twitter user, Stephen Lurie, posted a video of people standing in line at the Brooklyn Army. He wrote that it appears more than 400 people are there, and that a security guard is asking people to go home, but they are asking for more information and refuse to leave.
Bill Neidhardt, press secretary to Mayor Bill de Blasio, tried to shut down the rapidly spreading information on Twitter and wrote in a tweet that the mayor’s office would send someone to clean up the line.
New York City Councilman Justin Brannan also tweeted and encouraged New Yorkers out of the Army Terminal.
Brannan said in an email to Insider that the claim for extra vaccines was ‘100% BOGUS’.
The New York mayor’s office confirmed to Insider that there is no formal waiting list for people who are not in priority groups to be vaccinated ahead of schedule. Vaccination sites work with city officials to reach eligible citizens, so no doses are wasted.
The Brooklyn Army Terminal is also a 24/7 vaccination site, so there is no issue of thawed vaccines at the end of the day.
“The city has different ways of using doses,” a spokesman for the mayor’s office said, adding that vaccination sites work with city officials to reach eligible citizens, and therefore no doses are wasted.
Currently, the city vaccinates its health workers, nursing home residents, grocery store workers, first responders and transportation workers, as well as teachers, people living or working in homeless shelters or group homes, and all older than 65 years.
To make an appointment, New Yorkers in the priority groups can use the city’s online registration form, or call 877-VAX-4NYC.
Hilary Brueck reported.
Read the original article on Business Insider