New York has administered 1.4 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in the last seven days, a record since the state began inoculating people in December, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Thursday.
The governor hailed the milestone as New York races to vaccinate enough people before more contagious and possibly more lethal variants of the virus take hold.
“As the warmer weather and increased economic activity bring more people out of their homes, making sure that every New Yorker gets vaccinated is more important than ever,” Cuomo said in a statement.
A total of 233,754 doses were administered across the state in the last 24 hours, with a total of 9.5 million vaccines injected into people’s arms since December, he said.
Nearly one-third of the state population has received at least one shot of the vaccine, according to state data released Thursday, and almost one-fifth are fully vaccinated.
The number of doses being shipped to New York by the federal government is starting to ramp up rapidly, according to the data. Cuomo said that the “week 16” allocation was in the process of being delivered to providers.
Demand still far outstrips supply, he said, and New York needs many more dosages than it is receiving.
“The fight against COVID is far from over, and the vaccine is the weapon that will win this war,” Cuomo said. “I urge eligible New Yorkers who still need to make an appointment to do so right away, and everyone else to continue to take the safety precautions that will help us beat back the infection rate as we keep working around the clock to get more shots into people’s arms.”
He urged people to “remain patient” and not to show up at vaccination sites without an appointment.
While the state and Long Island are making progress in vaccinating people, the number of confirmed cases and the levels of positivity in testing for COVID-19 are not declining and are remaining at a “plateau” that refuses to drop, state data shows.
The statewide daily positivity level in test results from Wednesday was 3.71%, while the seven-day average was 3.58% statewide and 4.39% on Long Island.
Those levels have remained relatively constant for weeks. In the summer, the level was about 1% statewide and on Long Island.
The number of new confirmed cases in test results Wednesday was 689 in Nassau County, 764 in Suffolk County, and 4,322 in New York City. During the summer the figures in each county was well below 100.
Statewide 56 people died on Wednesday of COVID-19-related causes, including four in Nassau and seven in Suffolk.
New York State’s coronavirus case rate is now among the highest in the United States, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, eclipsed only by a handful of other states such as Michigan and New Jersey.
And Long Island has one of New York’s highest infection rates statewide.
A seven-day average shows the state has had 245 cases per 100,000 outside of New York City, which has had 342 per 100,000. The rate in Michigan is 379 per 100,000 and 352 per 100,000 in New Jersey, CDC data show. The average nationwide is 132 per 100,000
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