The rate of new COVID-19 cases statewide continues to fall after a post-holiday bump but Long Island still has New York’s highest seven-day average of positive tests, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Sunday.
There were 12,720 new positive cases of COVID-19 reported to the state on Saturday out of 249,955 test results for a daily positivity rate of 5.09%, Cuomo said in a statement. That figure includes 1,069 new cases in Nassau and 1,117 in Suffolk.
Long Island’s seven-day average was 6.99% on Saturday, the highest of any region in the state, just above mid-Hudson’s 6.85% and 6.74% in the capital region.
“The COVID war still needs to be fought, and while many feel COVID fatigue, that is a luxury we cannot afford. If we tire before the enemy, the enemy wins — it’s that simple,” Cuomo said.
The demand for vaccine in New York far outnumbers the doses that have been coming in from the federal government, Cuomo and other officials have repeatedly pointed out. While there is a large network of vaccination sites, several centers have shut down periodically due to lack of supply.
The governor continued an effort to reach out to communities of color where many have expressed reluctance to get vaccinated despite being hit hard by the pandemic.
Cuomo said the shot will be made available to communities of color through churches, public housing, community groups and other ways to make sure it is equitably distributed.
In pretaped remarks aired during services Sunday at houses of worship with large numbers of Black congregants — Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn, Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Rochester and The People’s AME Zion Church in Syracuse — Cuomo urged those watching to trust the vaccine.
Echoing remarks he made Saturday at a public housing residence in Brooklyn, Cuomo said the pandemic exposed racial injustices in America, noting Black people are twice as likely as white people to die from the virus. He acknowledged that there may be a sense of mistrust against the government, but stressed the vaccine had been reviewed by a state panel of experts and was deemed safe.
“The COVID beast is still among us,” Cuomo said in his pretaped remarks. “We now have a vaccine that will save lives, but it will only save lives if we take it.”
Cuomo said the shot will be made available to the Black community through churches, public housing, community groups and other ways to make sure it is equitably distributed.
During the Saturday visit to Brooklyn, Cuomo announced vaccine kits were being sent to eight additional churches and four New York City Housing Authority sites in an effort to vaccinate about 3,000 senior citizens and others eligible by Tuesday.
Two of those churches are on Long Island: Memorial Presbyterian Church in Roosevelt and St. Hugh of Lincoln Catholic Church in Huntington Station. Appointments are scheduled by each church.
New York has received 1.3 million first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and administered 1.1 million as of Sunday, according to the state. Long Island has received 149,370 first doses and 144,508 have been administered though state and county sites, pharmacies and other centers.
More than 8,600 people are currently hospitalized due to COVID-19 across the state and 160 New Yorkers died due to COVID-19 on Saturday, state figures show. Patients in Nassau accounted for 11 of those deaths and 13 were in Suffolk.
Overall, 1.3 million people in New York have tested positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic started and 34,069 have died. The number of positive cases across the U.S. has topped 25 million, according to the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University of Medicine and over 417,000 U.S. deaths have been attributed to the disease.
With Vera Chinese
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