Jackson Heights Science Communication Initiative

After a year and a half and 350 posts, we’re closing out this chapter of JHSci.

We started this space in late 2020 during the height of the 2nd wave of the pandemic, with the mission to bring interpretable and accessible science to our neighbors. We’ve loved sharing our expertise, answering your questions, and being the neighborhood go-tos for all things COVID, but now that vaccines are authorized for everyone except the teeny tiny babies, we’ve decided it’s time to say goodbye.

COVID is still very much here. In fact, we are in the middle of another surge—yes, another one. Stopping this group is in no way an indication that we feel the pandemic is over, or that we agree with reductions in testing (our beloved Corona clinic is now closed for testing) or the city’s various other signals that COVID is a thing of the past. But behind JHSci is a bunch of busy (volunteer) humans, and we need to take a break.

Don’t forget that you still have all the layers in your COVID prevention toolkit: vaccines, masks, doing things outside, getting tested, getting treatment, staying home when you are sick. COVID is around for awhile, but we can all keep doing our parts to keep each other safe.

Thank you for following and supporting us! See you around the neighborhood! 😎

.frye5

Once again, COVID is tearing through our neighborhood. If you haven’t already, it’s time to step up your prevention methods. Specifically, we’re thinking back to one of our very first posts– layer your strategies–no one thing is a magic bullet against COVID, and it really takes several of them, together, to be maximally protected.

While we’ve been posting the test positivity rate in 11372 regularly, you can keep an eye on this number yourselves by going to the NYC Department of Health website (https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-main.page). Click the COVID tab, then latest data, then “by neighborhood” to see the map and to find our little rectangle of 11372/Jackson Heights in Queens. For now, these numbers are being updated daily but that could change as the city’s response to the pandemic shifts.

*Note: this week we had inadequate testing numbers to be very confident in the rate, but even so, it is high. This has been the case recently, presumably because more people are relying on rapid tests and test availability has been declining.

The good news is that hospitalization and death rates are staying much lower with this wave of COVID infections than in previous ones. The bad news is that our test positivity rate is still quite high and there are many, many cases in our community. As long as we’re still in this current surge, please remember to wear your mask indoors and do all the other things to help keep each other safe. Thanks for keeping your neighbors safe and healthy.