New York was set to run out of Covid-19 vaccinations by the end of the day Friday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in his press briefing at around noon Friday.
The state had about 28,000 vaccines left and has been administering about 80,000 per day. The allocation that’s running out was for the first five weeks of the vaccine rollout.
“The week one-through-five allocation will be exhausted by the end of the day Friday,” Cuomo said. “It may already be exhausted, frankly, midday Friday. And we’re now going week to week on the next week’s allocation.”
The allocation for week 6, which is 250,400 doses for the entire state, is now being delivered by the federal government. The state then distributes them to each region, and the region distributes them to medical providers to administer. Cuomo urged providers to only schedule vaccination appointments for the number of doses “they know they will receive.”
“The last thing we want to do is cancel appointments,” Cuomo said.
During his briefing, Cuomo also applauded measures that President Joe Biden has taken in his first few days in office to curb the virus, including using the Defense Production Act to push companies to increase production of personal protective equipment, testing supplies, and vaccines, although Cuomo said “it is more complicated on how the Defense Production Act can help on the production of the vaccine itself.”
Long Island has administered 97 percent of the vaccines it has received in the first five weeks of the vaccine rollout, and 61 percent of Long Island hospital workers have been vaccinated, according to the state.
On Friday, Long Island’s seven-day average for Covid-19 positivity rates was 7.31 percent, the highest in the state. The statewide positivity rate is 5.65 percent. There are 1,613 people hospitalized for Covid-19 on Long Island.
“These numbers are a function of behavior,” Cuomo said. “How you act is how quickly the virus will spread. It’s that simple.”
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