The Mount Vernon Neighborhood Health Center is gearing up for when the COVID-19 vaccine is ready to be distributed.

The staff is already making room in their refrigerators for some of the vaccine and ordering special freezers to accommodate the medicine, which requires being stored in cooler temperatures.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently said that he will make sure minority communities get preferential treatment in receiving the vaccines.

Judith Watson, the health center's CEO, agrees that hard-hit communities where minorities and essential workers live should be at the front of the lines of any distribution.

"Black people in particular are dying at three times the rate of our white counterparts. Black people are dying disproportionately from COVID, so logic would make you think that we would be the priority for everyone, the population that we serve," she says.

Watson says the big issue she faces is convincing her patients that they should get the vaccine.

She estimates 50% of her clientele would take it, but she believes the other 50% will be harder to convince.