Mar 8, 2021
- Our mass vaccination sites are doing outstanding work administering the vaccine to eligible New Yorkers. Over the weekend, the Javits Center vaccination site administered 13,431 doses over a 24-hour period on Saturday and Sunday, and 13,713 doses over a 24-hour period on Sunday and Monday—the best performance of any one vaccination site in the nation. Thanks to increasing vaccine supply from the federal government, we can continue to ramp up New York's distribution efforts. To that end, we will open 10 new mass vaccination sites in the coming weeks to continue to get shots in arms and to bring us closer to vaccines for all. The new sites will be established in New York City, Long Island, Hudson Valley, Capital Region, Southern Tier, Mohawk Valley and Western New York. The more people we vaccinate, the more we can continue our progress to keep the infection rate down and reopen our economy and defeat COVID once and for all.
Photo of the Day: Today, I was joined by Reverend Gilbert Pickett at the Javits Center mass vaccination site in New York City, where he got the single-dose Janssen/Johnson & Johnson vaccine
(Photo by Don Pollard)
Here's what else you need to know tonight:
1. COVID hospitalizations slightly rose to 4,830. Of the 146,456 tests reported yesterday, 5,309, or 3.62 percent, were positive. There were 1,005 patients in ICU yesterday, up six from the previous day. Of them, 669 are intubated. Sadly, we lost 64 New Yorkers to the virus.
2. As of 11am today, 89 percent of first doses allocated to the state have been administered. This represents 3,746,905 first doses administered of the 4,227,090 first dose allocations received from the federal government. So far, 5,640,706 total doses have been administered out of the 6,541,110 total doses received. See data by region and county on the State's Vaccine Tracker: ny.gov/vaccinetracker.
3. Starting March 19, restaurants outside of New York City can expand indoor dining capacity. The data has shown that restaurants can operate safely and in accordance with strict protocols at 75 percent capacity. New York City restaurant capacity will remain at 35 percent capacity.
4. More than 40,000 vaccine doses have been administered in New York houses of worship. More than 22,500 first doses and more than 18,000 second doses have been administered at 48 pop-up sites established in houses of worship. Partnering with houses of worship builds on New York's efforts to bring the vaccine to underserved communities across the state and I call on more religious leaders to partner with New York to establish more pop-up sites. Interested houses of worship can contact the state here.
Tonight's "Deep Breath Moment": A Long Island teen has partnered with an international nonprofit to help provide kids around the world with access to children's books. Victoria Isernia, a high school student in Huntington, NY, organized a book drive in her community and collected more than 1,000 books that she donated to international nonprofit Hindi's Libraries, which will help distribute the books to children in need.
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