NY: SUNY Schools Get Doses, J&J Supply Drops 90%, 1 in 4 Fully Vax-ed

admin Posted OnApril 12, 2021

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NY: SUNY Schools Get Doses, J&J Supply Drops 90%, 1 in 4 Fully Vax-ed: Governor Andrew Cuomo announced today that, with infection rates rising in the state’s younger demographics, vaccine efforts are now focused on young people. The state’s goal, according to Cuomo, is to vaccinate students by the end of the school year. He also announced, as part of this new initiative, an agreement with all SUNY schools who will receive weekly allocations of the vaccine and administer them to their students through each school’s health centers. Check out this handy Vaccine Finder:

One in four New Yorkers are Fully Vax-ed – J&J Allocations to Drop 90%

The governor also announced that 4.87 million New Yorkers, or one in four, have now received their full series of COVID vaccinations. And 7.47 million New Yorkers, or 37.4%, have received at least one jab. He also announced that next week New York’s allocation of Johnson & Johnson vaccines will drop from approximately 350,000 to just under 35,000 or by 90%. The governor did not explain whey the J&J allocation will drop next week, thought some state legislators have speculated that it could be tied to a production snafu at a Baltimore plant in late March. The governor reassured that no current appointments will be cancelled.

The state, it’s worth noting, has approximately 1.8 million doses on hand that have not yet been administered – the highest inventory to date. Last week New York administered nearly 1.5 million doses, so the current inventory represents twenty percent more than a full week’s supply. Allocations of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine however will not be impacted. Approximately two-thirds of the 1.068 million doses that the state received last week are from Pfizer and Moderna. Assuming Pfizer and Moderna deliveries are not increased that means New York should still receive over 700,000 doses this week. Which is about equal to the state’s weekly average over the previous four weeks, from March 8 to April 4.

Supply issues remain the key bottleneck in New York’s vaccination efforts. With the state administering 1.5 million vaccinations last week it has demonstrated the capacity to vaccinate every New Yorker, assuming they all want one, by mid-June. On the other hand, if current supply trends continue, this week’s J&J news notwithstanding, New York could get the job done before Labor Day

New York Positivity Rate Back to November Levels

Cuomo also weighed in on New York’s positivity rate of 2.99% saying it is back to where it was in November, before the holiday spike. New York’s Mid-Hudson region, which included Westchester County’s positivity rate remains above New York’s average at 3.88%. Below only Western New York at 4.89% and Long Island at 3.93% amongst the state’s ten regions. Westchester County’s positivity rate was 3.16%. Nationally the positivity rate also rose for the second straight week to 5.1%. It’s bottom for the year was 3.9% on March 14 and hasn’t been above 5% since March 14 when it hit 5.3%.

For historical perspective, 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.

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