NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) — City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan said Wednesday that while COVID-19 numbers remain low, he's urging New Yorkers to get their booster shots as flu cases surge.
"The time to get vaccinated is now," he said. "Pair it with a flu shot."
So far, only 360,000 New Yorkers have received the new bivalent COVD-19 booster. The city is also monitoring for new COVID strains.
"The current situation is good, but it's not permanent and it could move significantly in either direction depending on the actions we do or do not take," Vasan added.
He continued to raise the alarm about polio days after Gov. Kathy Hochul extended the virus emergency declaration through at least Nov. 8 in order to boost vaccination efforts.
Health officials said Tuesday that the paralytic case in Rockland County was genetically linked to Brooklyn and Queens wastewater collected in August.
The poliovirus is still primarily being found in Rockland County as well as in Orange, Sullivan, and Nassau counties, along with findings in the New York City samples.
Meanwhile, the Health Department's outreach initiatives have increased polio vaccination rates by 9% among children 5 and under.
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For Vasan, polio is personal.
"I learned about polio from two of its victims," the commissioner added. "Mainly, my father's older sister, a medical student who died of the disease in India in the 1950s, and my father's younger brother, a polio survivor who acquired the virus as a baby and who has lived for decades paralyzed on one side of his lower body."
Health officials are also seeing progress on monkeypox, now known as MPV.
"We have turned a corner that I hope indicates that we now have the upper hand on this outbreak," Vasan added.
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