Montefiore in the News

Montefiore Mt. Vernon Hospital offered COVID-19 vaccines with no appointment necessary on Sunday.

Residents were able to walk into the hospital for their dose until 5:30 p.m.

The hospital coordinated with the mayor's office to get 400 doses of Moderna vaccines for the weekend pop-up site.

A hospital official told News 12 they have been doing outreach with their patients, but believe there are people who they have not been able to get a hold of to help. That's why they were not requiring appointments.

"Increasing access is one of our main priorities," said the operations manager for Montefiore Mt. Vernon Hospital Julian Loo.

When looking at the state's COVID-19 vaccine breakdown in terms of ethnicity for Westchester County, the African American community is underrepresented. Only 10.3% of people who have gotten one dose are Black - when they account for 16.7% of the total Westchester population.

In Mount Vernon, about 65% of its residents are Black and the city has the third highest number of active COVID-19 cases in the state.

"People of my color, they don't trust it. They really don't," said Mount Vernon resident Shirley Houston, who came to the pop-up vaccination site along with her grandson to get their doses.

She said she was not surprised by the numbers when it comes to communities of color.

"A lot of people really don't investigate they just take what somebody else says. 'Don't take that because so and so got sick from it.' That's why they don't take it," Houston said.

Houston said she hopes people do their research and consider getting their shot just like she did.

The hospital hopes that this is the beginning as they want to have more pop-up vaccination sites in Mount Vernon for later this week and beyond.

If they have any of their 400 doses left over, a hospital official said they are going to store the doses and use them when they have more of this availability in the coming days and weeks ahead.