Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo returned to one of the most important moments in the epic battle against the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday, announcing the opening in the coming weeks of 10 more mass vaccination sites across the state, including three on Long Island.
The sites here will be located on the Suffolk County Community College campus in Brentwood, the SUNY Old Westbury campus and the SUNY Stony Brook campus in Southampton.
“Due to the growing supply of vaccines from our Washington partners, we can use more of our state’s ability to distribute doses, and once they are opened, these new sites will allow us to continue to get gunfire on a large scale. broad, “Cuomo said in a statement.
The state already operates mass vaccination sites at Jones Beach and the Stony Brook University campus in Stony Brook.
New York City will also receive an additional vaccination site at a location that has not yet been announced in the Bronx, Cuomo said. The state has not yet set specific dates for those vaccination sites that become operational.
The impending rise in vaccination options, announced on a day when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said fully vaccinated people can gather indoors without masks, was welcomed by Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, who said that 23.5% of the inhabitants of the county have obtained at least one COVID-19 shot so far.
Two of the three approved vaccine formulations require two vaccines to be effective.
“The new CDC guidelines released today confirm that vaccination is the best tool we have to get back to normal,” Curran said in a statement. “My message to the people of Nassau is simple: when you are eligible and have the opportunity, I urge you to shoot yourself.”
The governor made the announcement at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, reviewing a site that had been turned into a mass emergency hospital last year as New York erupted in an epidemic that captured the city and state and brought much of it to life. society in a motionless stillness.
Cuomo, arguing the worst crisis of his political career, amid allegations of sexual harassment and covering the number of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes, instead focused on Monday on how the massive convention hall turned the venue vaccination was a “big”. of army cribs to treat the victims of the deadly virus, as hospitals were overwhelmed in the spring of 2020.
He described the fear he saw on the faces of national guards and army personnel who were part of the center in the early days when scientists knew little about the virus.
Turning the center into a massive emergency hospital was something “no convention center on the planet has ever done,” Cuomo said.
He remembered talking to the national guards.
“I’m in this place that looked like it was a scene from a science fiction movie. It looked like it was after the apocalypse,” he said. “And the National Guard was scared. It could be seen in their eyes.
“But they showed up. And that was so powerful for me. In this scary scene – jeeps, army trucks, body bags – they showed up … They had the courage to show up.”
“A painful year”
Cuomo promoted the state’s progress since the pandemic and urged state residents, especially in minority communities, to take advantage of the availability of the vaccine and the many places that are now operational. A dozen members of the black clergy stood behind him, and he pointed at them as supporters of the vaccines. One received a blow during the event, which was broadcast live.
“It was a painful year … Death, suffering, anxiety, loss, but we managed to get through,” Cuomo said, moving away from the way his live briefings were conducted to close the press event, citing as a reason the restrictions COVID-19. . “We are now at the end or the beginning of the end. Why? Because we have a vaccine,” Cuomo added.
He said the Javits Center, which was open 24 hours a day to administer fire for COVID-19, “did more vaccinations than anywhere else in the United States” over the weekend.
The center recorded 13,431 photos taken in 24 hours on Saturday and Sunday, and then 13,713 from Sunday to Monday morning, he said.
Cuomo also said that so far about 40,000 vaccines have been given in 48 temporary pop-up locations across the state.
The statewide seven-day average for positivity in COVID-19 tests was 3.19%, state data showed. Out of 146,456 tested results reported on Sunday, 3.62% came back positive for a total of 5,309 new cases in the state.
The seven-day average on Long Island was 4.28%, the figure persisting over 4% for several days. The number of new cases confirmed in Sunday’s test results was 453 in Nassau County, 552 in Suffolk County and 2,747 in New York.
Nationwide, 64 people died on Sunday from virus-related causes, including six in Nassau and one in Suffolk.
In New York, a day of remembrance
Meanwhile, New York City will mark the one-year anniversary of the first death in COVID-19 on March 14, a day of remembrance, Mayor Bill de Blasio said at his daily news conference.
“We will mark Sunday with a day of respect and love for the families who lost their loved ones in this crisis,” he said. “We will remember the people we lost. We will keep them close. But it is also a time to think about all that this city has gone through and the power, compassion and love they have given us. New Yorkers show it “
Family members who have lost loved ones to the virus can send names and pictures here. The memorial, which will begin at 7:45 p.m., will be broadcast live on social media, including Twitter and Facebook.
The city vaccinated 100,000 over the weekend, bringing the total so far to 2.32 million New Yorkers, de Blasio said.
The goal, he said, is to vaccinate the city’s 500,000 residents as supply increases.
The city has also announced plans to vaccinate 14,000 to 23,000 seniors at home with the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine over the next seven weeks. The door-to-door effort began in the cooperative city of the Bronx, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn and Far Rockaway, Queens. The plan is to vaccinate at least 1,200 seniors at home each week, de Blasio said.
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