Michael Fitzgerald
The Imprint
Editor s note: This story was co-published with The Imprint, an independent, nonprofit daily news publication covering child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health and educational issues. Visit imprintnews.org to learn more.
As the coronavirus tore through the country last year, New York state officials relied on testing to keep people safe in prisons, nursing homes, schools and other group facilities.
Statewide, 13,000 prisoners had been tested by September 2020. Youth accused of crimes awaiting trial in New York City were also regularly tested, with results guiding local health officialsâ efforts to contain infectious spread from cramped quarters out into the community.
When a traveler introduced smallpox to New York City in 1947, the city and in
particular its health commissioner, Israel Weinstein apparently ran an epic
vaccination campaign, reaching 5 million people in the first two weeks.1 That
is, four hundred thousand vaccinations per day. San Francisco in two days.
For covid, the first New York City vaccine was given on the 14th of December,
and if I understand, by the 10th of January, twenty seven days later, 203,181
doses had reportedly been given. That’s around eight thousand doses per day. A
factor of fifty fewer.
That’s a pretty incredible difference. Why is New York fifty times slower at
delivering covid vaccines in 2021 than it was at delivering smallpox vaccines in
1947?
Part of the answer is presumably ‘regression to the mean’: if thousands of
different cities at different times try to roll out vaccinations quickly, with a
similar basic ability to do so, and there is some random chance in how well it
goes, then the one we tel
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/nyregion/nyc-smallpox-vaccine.html
The vaccination line on April 14, 1947, at the New York City Health Department.Credit.Arthur Brower/The New York Times
How New York City Vaccinated 6 Million People in Less Than a Month
When a single case of smallpox arrived in Manhattan in 1947, a severe outbreak was possible. A decisive civil servant made a bold decision.
The vaccination line on April 14, 1947, at the New York City Health Department.Credit.Arthur Brower/The New York Times
Dec. 18, 2020
On Easter weekend in 1947, New York City buzzed with an air of invincibility. The miseries of World War II were finally over, and New York, like the rest of the country, was buoyant. The future promised great things. The Polaroid Land camera had just been invented. Consumer TV sets were appearing in living rooms. The transistor radio was in the works.