Ages 30+ Eligible in New York Tomorrow – 16+ to Follow

Ages 30+ Eligible in New York Tomorrow – 16+ to Follow: Governor Andrew Cuomo just announced that beginning tomorrow, Tuesday March 30 all New Yorkers aged 30+ will be eligible to receive the coronavirus vaccine. And beginning next Tuesday, April 6 everyone aged 16+ will be eligible.

Additionally, New Yorkers age 75 and older plus one eligible escort of any age can now get vaccinated together without appointments at three 24/7 city-run mass vaccination sites: Brooklyn Army Terminal, Bathgate and Citi Field.

How Long Will it Take To Vaccinate Everybody in New York?: Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Sunday that almost 8.9 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered to New York residents to date. More than 5.8 million New Yorkers have received at least one dose of the vaccine and more than 3.2 million have received their complete vaccine series. That translates, according to the Governor’s latest press release, to 29.2% of the New York population of approximately 19.9 million people. While 16.3 percent of the state’s total population has completed their vaccine series. So how long will it take to vaccinate everybody in the state?

Can we do it by the Fourth of July? 

The short answer is 14 to 18 weeks depending on supply. Here’s our calculations. There are just under twenty million New Yorkers however Governor Cuomo reported in his weekly press conference several weeks ago, that only 15 million New Yorkers are authorized by the FDA to receive the vaccine. This is because under 16’s were not included in the Pfizer clinical trials and under 18’s were not included in the Moderna trials. Until clinical trials are completed on this segment of the population they cannot receive the vaccine. Since each person requires two doses that would mean New York has to receive and administer 30 million doses, assuming 100% of the population chooses to receive the vaccine.

However, over 1.8 million New Yorkers have tested positive for the virus, according to the New York State Department of Health. Since each would otherwise need two doses of the vaccine that leaves the state needing to administer 26.4 million doses to achieve 100% coverage of the CDC authorized population. With 8.9 million doses already jabbed in the arms of New Yorkers, the state has completed approximately 34% of the job and is 17.5 million vaccinations away from 100% coverage.

17.5 Million Jabs to Go

To see how long it will take to administer another 17.5 million jabs we need to look at the state’s capacity to administer vaccine doses and supply. Last week there were more than 1.25 million vaccine doses administered in the state. Assuming New York maintains that pace it would take fourteen weeks to administer the additional 17.5 million doses. That brings us to the week of the Fourth of July.

Now let’s look at the supply side. New York providers currently have 1.65 million doses on hand. An additional 15.85 million doses are required to complete the vaccination series over New York’s authorized population. Over the past four weeks New York received a total allocation of more than 3.167 million doses or approximately 800,000 doses per week. If that supply remains constant New York would have 12.85 million doses to administer over the next 14 weeks. Leaving us three million doses or just under four weeks of supply short. That would bring us to very early August. Alternatively supply would need to increase by 214,000 per week or 27% to complete the job by the week of the fourth of July.

New York/US Positivity Rate Jumps

Statewide the New York Positivity Rate inched up to 3.52% last week from 2.83% the previous week. Nationally the positivity rate also rose to 4.6% from 4.1% the previous week. New York State’s positivity rate peaked at 49.9% on March 30 and was as low as .09% on September 18. It wasn’t until November 5th that it returned to as high as 2%. The US positive test rate peaked at 21.9% in the spring and bottomed at 4.1% in June and 4% in October. It’s fall winter peak was 13.7% earlier in January, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine’s Coronavirus Resource Center.

 Looking for a vaccine? Check theses sites.

Check for appointments at the New York State site, and check the New York State hotline for cancellations: 833-NYS-4-VAX.

Here’s the link you can use to check for appointment availability at Northern Westchester Hospital,

Westchester.gov publishes a list of weekly allocations down to the local pharmacy level when it receives the information from the state. Which it doesn’t always do on a timely basis.

inally, if you work in New York City and can prove it you can check the NYC Vaccine Finder to schedule an appointment, assuming you can find one.