I.S. Saluja

NEW YORK (TIP): “As of today, more than 2.5 million New Yorkers have received a first vaccine dose—about 12.8 percent of the state’s population”, Governor Cuomo said at his press briefing Feb 25. “This is a promising step in our vaccination efforts. We’re doing everything we can to further build our vaccination distribution network and to ensure the vaccine is being administered equitably, but one of our biggest obstacles to getting every single New Yorker vaccinated remains a lack of supply. The number of doses we receive from the federal government has been increasing each week and in turn, we’ve been able to expand eligibility to even more New Yorkers. Now with the news of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the prospect of even greater vaccine supply is on the horizon. As vaccine appointments remain scarce at the moment, I urge New Yorkers to be patient and continue to exercise caution about the virus”, the governor said. Giving an update on COVID cases, the governor said that COVID hospitalizations had dropped to 5,703. Of the 278,942 tests reported yesterday, 8,746, or 3.34 percent, were positive. There were 1,124 patients in ICU yesterday, down 30 from the previous day. Of them, 774 are intubated. Sadly, we lost 89 New Yorkers to the virus. Governor Cuomo added that that as of 11am, Feb 25, 91 percent of first doses allocated to the state have been administered. This represents 2,562,274 first doses administered of the 2,812,900 first dose allocations received from the federal government. So far, 3,985,558 total doses have been administered out of the 4,530,640 total doses received. See data by region and county on the State’s Vaccine Tracker: ny.gov/vaccinetracker.

He also announced that twelve community-based pop-up vaccination sites will come online this week. The sites will be set up at community centers, public housing complexes and cultural centers and will vaccinate more than 3,700 New Yorkers. Since January 15, more than 100 community-based pop-up sites administered over 46,000 first doses to eligible New Yorkers. These sites are a key component to New York’s effort to fair and equitable vaccine distribution and we will continue to work with our local partners to help the communities hit hardest by the pandemic. Governor Cuomo spoke of the shortage of vaccinators and encouraged “eligible New Yorkers to train to become vaccinators. “If you are a licensed practical nurse, a dentist, an EMT, a medical nursing student with at least a year of clinical experience, and more—then you may be eligible to take training to become a vaccinator and help New York administer COVID vaccines over the coming months”, governor said.