A 78-year-old grandfather in the Bronx on Monday became one of the first residents in state residences to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, and said he counts on that to let him see his grandchildren again soon.
Kelley Dixon eagerly lifted the sleeve of his shirt to receive the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine at the Hebrew house in Riverdale.
“Go for it,” Dixon told pharmacist Michael Zaretsky, who handled the syringe, which the septuagenarian didn’t even seem to notice.
Dixon said he jumped at the chance to inoculate himself with the vaccine because “I have a lot of confidence in scientists,” as well as plans for the time when the pandemic will finally ease.
“I’ll go to Yonkers and see my grandchildren,” he later told CBS New York.
Although gunfire began deploying to Empire State hospitals last week, vaccinations for residents and workers began Monday at 618 long-term care centers across the state. .
Nearly 7,400 residents of nursing homes have died due to the coronavirus during the pandemic, according to official figures, although an August investigation by the Associated Press estimated the actual figure was probably more than 11,000.
At the new Jewish home on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, 96-year-old Rhoda Winkelman was one of the people inoculated Monday.
Winkelman’s son, the Manhattan dermatologist, Dr. Warren Winkelman told The Post that the pandemic “has been tough” with his mother, with whom he speaks daily on the phone.
“My sister, who lives in Maryland, hasn’t seen her in almost seven months. He has also been very hard on her and her granddaughters, ”said Samantha Greenstein, 25, and Jennifer Greenstein, 27.
“It’s really heartbreaking, because the youngest have just graduated from law school just this week. . . That bothered her, it bothered her a lot. “
Warren added, “This is the torture of getting old and still maintaining your faculties.”
“He’s fully aware and knows it’s a pandemic, but it doesn’t help make it easier to experience separation and isolation,” he said.
“He’s fully aware and knows it’s a pandemic, but it doesn’t help make it easier to experience separation and isolation,” he said.
According to state guidelines published in September, residents of nursing homes cannot have visitors under the age of 18 and adults can only visit with strict restrictions and other restrictions, including testing for a negative coronavirus test. during the last seven days.
Two-dose vaccines are being administered in situ at nursing homes through the CVS and Walgreens pharmacy chains.
The first round of shooting is expected to take about two weeks, Governor Cuomo said Monday.
At the new Jewish home, CEO Jeffrey Farber said Walgreens was providing 700 doses for Monday’s injections, with 1,300 needed to inoculate all residents and employees.
“Residents, in general, are more likely to embrace the vaccine, to be excited to receive it,” he said.
“Residents have not been able to see their families and loved ones for months.”
But Farber said “a good portion of the staff is concerned about the vaccine and is reluctant to get vaccinated right away and wants to wait a bit and see how it develops.”
“We have been working very hard to communicate with the staff and encourage them in every way possible to get the vaccine,” he added.
The medical director of Hebrew Home, Dr. Zachary Palace, who also received a shot, said Monday marked “the day we are able to do something proactive to help finally break this horrible pandemic.”
The 751-bed facility has had 52 deaths of residents officially guilty of coronavirus, but The Post revealed exclusively in May that staff said 119 people had died in the previous two months, including many symptoms of COVID-19.
Weeks later, the state Department of Health reported a violation of the facility with several infractions for “infection control problems, failure to accurately report at the request of the department and failure to communicate with families and residents of timely manner on deaths by COVID-19 “.
Last month, The Post also revealed that “several units” were shut down at the 751-bed facility due to the flooding of fatalities and that, as a result, 56 workers had been laid off.
Daniel Reingold, CEO of RiverSpring Health, the parent company of the Hebrew house in Riverdale, called the violations discovered by the state “very minor” and said that “all were corrected before the DOH even leave the facilities “.
“In fact, we’ve had five or six Department of Health surveys in the last four months and they’ve all been perfect,” he said.
Reingold also said he was “really impressed with how our staff managed to fight this battle in the beginning.”
“Remember, at the beginning, when all this happened, we had to get our own team and we were not allowed to test. We were fighting gunpowder and were blinded, “he said.” At the same time, we are so proud that we have not had any active cases of COVID since June. “
Additional reports by Bernadette Hogan