Albany church part of state vaccination effort
Cuomo touts fair and equitable rollout strategy
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office on Saturday said the state would expand deployment of community vaccination kits to several churches and housing sites in New York “to further strengthen fairness and equity in the vaccine distribution process.”
The local site is Sweet Pilgrim Baptist Church, 24 Ten Broeck St., Albany. Times are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, Jan. 25. The medical partnership is with Whitney M. Young Jr. Health Center. Appointments are scheduled independently by the church.
The effort is meant to provide first doses of the vaccine to an additional 3,000 seniors and eligible New Yorkers across the state by Tuesday.
“The undeniable fact is that COVID has killed the Black and Latino communities at a higher rate than the white community,” Cuomo said in a statement. “There is no getting around that and its why New York has made ensuring fairness and equity in the vaccine distribution such a priority.”
Statewide, the positivity rate is 5.26 percent an there were 144 deaths Friday, the governor’s office said.
County numbers
Albany County Executive Dan Mccoy said Saturday the county had 249 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total caseload since the pandemic began to 16,982.
There were two deaths: Men in their 60s and 70s.
The death toll for the county now stands at 293 since the start of the outbreak.
The five-day average for new daily positives rose from 213 to 228.4, Mccoy said.
Among the new cases, 35 had close contact with positive cases, one had traveled out of state, 201 did not have a clear source of infection at this time, and 12 are health care workers or residents of congregate settings.
The number of people under mandatory quarantine decreased to 2,840 from 2,888. So far, 50,339 people have completed quarantine. The county’s population is about 305,500, according to the Census Bureau.
Of those who completed quarantine, 15,218 of them had tested positive and recovered. That is an increase of 227 recoveries from Friday morning.
Mccoy said there were 19 new hospitalizations overnight, and there are 172 county residents currently hospitalized from the virus.
There are 16 patients in ICU’S, up three from Friday.