Jackson Heights Science Communication Initiative

Another week holding steady at a pretty high rate. As we enter the summer hopefully we'll all spend lots of time outdoors and reduce our risk while getting some sun!

And of course right now we are waiting with bated breath for our small children to be vaccinated. We will post a story when we have more information about that.

Stay well, neighbors!

COVID seems to have a lot of tricks up its sleeve, the latest being that you can get it again. And again. Sigh. But it’s true. While infections with many of the earlier variants provided a fair bit of protection from getting infected with the next variant, this doesn’t seem to hold true for omicron. This means that many of us are getting COVID again, often just a few months after the last time. Our take home: don’t get carried away just because you had COVID once–wear masks, get your boosters, take things outdoors when you can, and if you are sick, don’t think there’s no way it could be COVID again, because it definitely could be.

We are sad to report that we continue to see no movement on the rate of people in our zip code that have received a booster dose. However, there is reason to hope that this might soon change.

Last week, boosters for 5-12 year olds were authorized by FDA and approved by CDC. If your kid is eligible, there are many convenient sites around our neighborhood to get their booster dose of the Pfizer vaccine. You can check out vax4NYC and enter our zip code for local options.

We are waiting with bated breath for news on vaccines for our youngest children and can’t wait to report to you when they become authorized.

One million people in the US have died of COVID-19. This is a breathtaking, heartbreaking number and we want to take a moment to honor and remember those we have lost to this pandemic.

Here in our community, 11372, we’ve lost 426 neighbors to COVID. That means that 1 out of every 143 people in our neighborhood have died.
Each loss impacts countless other lives. Let’s all hold some space for all those affected in our hearts today.

Sending love from JHsci.