Vaccines for teens
State expanding COVID-19 vaccine signups on Tuesday
State to expand COVID -19 vaccine signups Tuesday to youths 16 and older.
Starting Tuesday, everyone 16 years of age or older can make an appointment to get a COVID-19 vaccine — opening up vaccination in New York to everyone of any age regardless of health condition or job.
On Sunday, New York said one in three residents has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine; one in five has completed all doses. Over the weekend, at least 187,964 doses were administered within a 24-hour time frame — and more than 1.4 million doses were given over the past week.
The vaccine is already being offered to teenagers locally. For example, in Bethlehem schools, a clinic has already been set up for students over the age of 16 on Saturday, April 10. Families of eligible students were emailed a link to make appointments. The clinic, being held by Crestwood Pharmacy at the high school, is expected to have about 500 doses of the Pfizer-biontech vaccine available.
To look at all the locations that are offering vaccine appointments, go the Times Union’s online roundup at www.timesunion.com/projects/2021/covid-vaccinelocations.
The unfettered access to vaccine appointments is of increasing importance to New York, as the state — as well as Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware — are among those with the highest case counts per 100,000 people in the U.S., according to Sunday data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The seven-day average for new COVID-19 cases in New York has ticked up slightly
from a month ago, from 3.1 percent March 3 to 3.6 percent April 3. But hospitalizations statewide are down, from 5,177 on March 3 to 4,373 on April 3. Daily statewide deaths have also hovered between 50 to 60 a day for the past couple of weeks. Officials have also worried how Passover and Easter gatherings are going to affect COVID’S spread.
“A new CDC study shows that COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing COVID-19 infections and serious COVID-19 illness. Once fully vaccinated, a person’s risk of infection is reduced by up to 90 percent,” the
CDC said in a weekly update. “However, we are also seeing an increase in COVID-19 cases, including cases from new and emerging COVID-19 variants of concern. These variants of concern are mutated versions of the SARS-COV-2 virus and have the potential to cause COVID-19 to be more severe, spread more easily between humans, require different treatments, or change the effectiveness of current vaccines.”
But at the same time case counts are higher in New York, the state has one of the lowest counts for detected coronavirus variants in the nation — 136 U.K. variant cases and one South African variant case.