New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has decided to ignore the science in his latest effort to convince as many New Yorkers as possible to get vaccinated.
While the “Key to NYC” program always only required at least one shot to gain access to indoor dining and entertainment facilities, de Blasio encouraged immediate access to these venues after just one dose.
“Let’s say someone goes to a restaurant and they didn’t know about the rule,” de Blasio said during his daily press briefing. “They really want to go to the restaurant and they’re ready to get vaccinated.
“You really want to go to that restaurant, you really want to go to that concert, or wherever it may be,” he continued, “you can literally go to that vaccination site, get your first shot, get your card, come back, go to that restaurant, go to that movie theater, go to that concert.”
Except that’s not how the vaccines work—any of them. Full protection is only offered to inoculated individuals two weeks after taking both the Pfizer and Moderna shots, as well as the single-dose Johnson & Johnson jab, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Anthony Santella, a former city Health Department official, said giving New Yorkers a green light to dine out indoors based on just one recently administered shot is not a good idea.
“The science doesn’t support, ‘Let me run over to a CVS, get vaccinated and come back and have my lobster or salad,'” he told The Post sarcastically. “You should really be living your life as an unvaccinated person, until you’re 14 days after your second shot.” (New York Post)
Social media users pointed out that de Blasio's advice showed the "Key to NYC" program is more about control than anything else.
As someone who is very much pro-vaccine this is 100% about control rather than science
— TJ Waggoner (@tjwaggoner) August 31, 2021
Just more evidence that this isn’t about health.
— Give Me Cleveland Or Give Me Death (@CLEorNOWHERE1) August 31, 2021
Not exactly following the science here. It takes at least two weeks... after the second shot for it to be effective. WTF is NYC's Michael Scott thinking? https://t.co/ntIckwzdLx
— Ian Miles Cheong @ stillgray.substack.com (@stillgray) August 31, 2021