Feb 1, 2021
- A nor'easter is barreling through the state, dropping large amounts of snow in most parts of New York. I issued a State of Emergency for 44 counties and urge New Yorkers to stay off the roads and avoid all unnecessary travel. Our state-run vaccination sites will be impacted by the storm again tomorrow but please don't worry. If you had an appointment to be vaccinated that cannot proceed Tuesday, we'll make sure you are rescheduled and notified of the new date and time. A full list of site closures and delays is below. Stay safe, New York.
Here's what else you need to know tonight:
1. Vaccination appointments scheduled for Tuesday, February 2nd at certain state-run facilities will be rescheduled due to the weather. Downstate state-run mass vaccination sites at SUNY Stony Brook, Jones Beach, Aqueduct Racetrack, the Javits Center and the Westchester County Center will be closed Tuesday, February 2nd. New Yorkers with appointments scheduled for Tuesday at these sites will receive an email or text message rescheduling their vaccination for a later date. Upstate state-run mass vaccination sites in Binghamton, Albany, Plattsburgh, Potsdam, Utica, Syracuse and Rochester will open with a delayed start at 10am Tuesday, February 2nd. Appointments that were scheduled before 10am at these sites will be rescheduled for later that same day. The Buffalo University state vaccination site will be open regular hours with no change to scheduled appointments.
2. COVID hospitalizations dropped to 8,003. Of the 175,038 tests reported yesterday, 8,508, or 4.86 percent, were positive. There were 1,500 patients in ICU yesterday, down 34 from the previous day. Of them, 987 are intubated. Sadly, we lost 141 New Yorkers to the virus.
3. As of 11am this morning, 90 percent of first doses allocated to the state have been administered. This represents 1,393,064 first doses administered of the 1,554,450 first dose allocations received from the federal government. So far, 307,662 second doses have been administered out of 725,050 second doses received. See data by region on the State's Vaccine Tracker.
4. Reminder to beware of COVID vaccination fraud. To help report vaccination fraud or scams across the State, New York established a hotline that New Yorkers can call to report fraudulent vaccinations. It is a red flag if anyone is promising you the vaccine in exchange for payment. To report suspected vaccine fraud, New Yorkers can call 1-833-VAX-SCAM (1-833-829-7226) or email STOPVAXFRAUD@health.ny.gov.
Tonight's "Deep Breath Moment": Every snowflake has its own unique crystal structure but it's been difficult to see the exact molecular structure of every single snowflake—until now. Nathan Myhrvold, who worked at Microsoft as Chief Technology Officer for 14 years, has captured the highest resolution image of a snowflake's structure. Capturing the uniqueness of each snowflake was extremely difficult since they are so small and melt so quickly, but Myhrvold developed a machine that was able to photograph a snowflake's individuality in clear resolution.
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