89- year-old woman begs mayor: GIVE US A SHOT!
Anthea Lingeman, 89, echoed the feelings of many New Yorkers when she told Mayor de Blasio that she and her husband “need to be vaccinated. I want to know how.” The state and city h ave been incredibly slow with the COVID vaccine rollout.
In a heart-wrenching plea to Mayor de Blasio on Friday, an 89-year-old Manhattan woman said she and her 90-year-old husband are desperate to get the COVID-19 vaccine — and want to know when they finally can get the shot.
“I’m 89. My husband is 90. We live on our own, and we need to be vaccinated. I want to know how,” the woman, who later identified herself to The Post as Anthea Lingeman, said in a call to WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show” during the mayor’s weekly appearance there.
“I’ve tried to look on the Web, but I’m legally blind, so it’s a bit difficult. I can only find appointments and things for health-care workers,” she told the mayor.
“I need a phone number or a Web site where I can really find out when we can be vaccinated as soon as possible.”
De Blasio, who has been calling for the state and Gov. Cuomo to authorize local officials to begin vaccinating elderly New Yorkers, first responders and essential workers, told Lingeman that he was “moved” by her remarks.
“This is exactly the point,” Hizzoner said. “You’re 89 years old, we need to protect you. We need to vaccinate you. You should have the right to get vaccinated. The state has to approve it.”
Lingeman, a retired book designer who lives in an Upper West Side apartment with her hubby of more than 50 years, Richard Lingeman, delivered her public plea amid a relentless flurry of finger-pointing between de Blasio and Cuomo that
has further slowed the sluggish vaccination rollout in New York.
She told The Post that the coronavirus makes her “very nervous.”
Richard, a retired editor and author, explained, “We are in the demographics where [contracting the coronavirus] is more often fatal.”
“I would say I’m not paralyzed with fright 24 hours a day. I go about my life. I live the best I can, but I just hope we can avoid it,” said Richard, who added that Cuomo and de Blasio “should stop quarreling.”
“I think they should perhaps work together more closely . . . so that we can get the vaccine soon. I’m unclear as to when this is going to happen.”
Hours after Anthea took to the radio, Cuomo, during his own press briefing, finally said the state would begin scheduling vaccinations on Monday for those in the next group, category 1B — which includes folks like the Lingemans who are over age 75, as well as frontline essential workers.
“Wow! Sounds good to me,” Anthea told The Post in reaction to the news.
Teachers, police, firefighters, bus drivers, train operators and other frontline workers are included in the 1B category, which makes up 3.2 million New Yorkers. The largest group in the 1B category is people 75 and older, accounting for 1.4 million in the state.
Cuomo said that without an increased vaccine supply, the state expects it will take 14 weeks to vaccinate those in the 1A and 1B groups.
Currently, only hospital workers, health-care workers, nursing-home residents and staff and paramedics are eligible to get COVID-19 inoculations under strict state guidelines that have frustrated local officials across the Empire State, including de Blasio.
De Blasio, who has been putting pressure on Cuomo, demanding the state give local governments the “freedom to vaccinate,” tweeted shortly after Cuomo’s announcement that the city “will begin administering shots” to city workers and the elderly in category 1B starting Monday.
During a City Hall press briefing earlier Friday, de Blasio again called on the state to allow the city to move on to vaccinate New Yorkers over 75.
“This is really dangerous,” he said. “If we can’t vaccinate the people who are in most danger, we’re going to lose lives we did not need to lose.”
De Blasio said the city has 270,000 vaccine doses “that we could be giving out right now to New Yorkers over 75.”
There are about 560,000 people in New York City over age 75, de Blasio noted.
“We’ve literally got twice as many New Yorkers over 75 as the amount of vaccine we have in stock right this minute,” de Blasio said. “And yet we are not allowed by the state law to give a single shot to a single New Yorker over 75.”