A Brooklyn clinic under investigation for fraudulently obtaining and diverting highly sought-after COVID-19 vaccines on Sunday claimed no more shots were fired.
A sign by hand with the letters “NO vaccines !!” was stuck on the front door of the ParCare Community Health Network store window in Williamsburg after The Post asked if injections were available.
Five people were seen entering the clinic on Park Ave 445, but a reporter was denied access, and a nurse said, “We only allow people with appointments.”
Asked if patients are being vaccinated against the coronavirus, the nurse said: “We have no vaccines.”
A man who showed up afterwards was also not allowed to enter and later said he was “naturally” there to get a chance.
“It’s not right,” he groans.
“I know people.”
A middle-aged man who passed by said he had been vaccinated earlier.
“My father shot the vaccine here,” the man said. “What, he has to die for some political decision?”
Mark Meyer Appel, who runs The Bridge Multicultural Advocacy Project in Brooklyn, told The Post that he was given a chance at the clinic on Wednesday after learning that the vaccine was available.
Appel, 68, said he should be vaccinated against COVID-19 because he has diabetes and runs a food pantry that puts him in touch with many people.
“I was more than the average person in the foreground,” he said.
Apple also said he was “not ashamed that I got the chance”, but admitted that he took down a Facebook post about it in response to online criticism.
On Saturday, the state Department of Health announced that it was assisting state police in a criminal investigation into ParCare, a non-profit organization that runs six clinics in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Orange County.
The investigation involves allegations that ParCare’s operation in Orange County, in Kiryas Joel, ‘fraudulently obtained COVID-19 vaccine, transferred it to facilities in other parts of the state in violation of state guidelines and redirected it to members of the public, ‘Health Commissioner Howard Zucker said.
Zucker calls the scam “contrary to the state’s plan to administer [vaccines] first, to put frontline health workers, as well as residents and nursing homes. ”
“Anyone who deliberately participates in this scheme will be held accountable to the full extent of the law,” he added.
On December 21, ParCare claimed to have received 3,500 doses of the Moderna vaccine, with CEO Gary Schlesinger telling the BoroPark24 website: “Hundreds of patients have already been vaccinated today, and there are still people coming in.”
In a series of tweets Early Sunday, ParCare said it was “striving to provide critical health care services and administer COVID-19 vaccines to those qualified to receive them according to New York Department of Health guidelines.”
“As we actively work with the New York Department of Health on this matter, we will continue to provide top-quality health care services to help New York emerge from this pandemic,” he added.