Student vaccinations
SUNY campuses will be directly provided with COVID -19 vaccines.
State University of New York campuses will be directly provided with allocations of COVID -19 vaccines to inoculate students, faculty and staff against the virus, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Monday.
Cuomo made the announcement at an event at Suffolk County Community College on Long Island. Although state officials, a county executive and leadership from the college were present, no members of the press were allowed to attend. Cuomo has not answered inperson questions from the media in months as he faces multiple scandals alleging personal and professional misconduct.
“College students had been told early on that (COVID -19) doesn’t affect young people as seriously,” Cuomo said in a conference call with reporters later in the afternoon. “They talk vaccine hesitancy, (but) I think with young people it’s more complacency.”
There are expected to be 21,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine available to SUNY and another 14,000 available to private colleges. SUNY and the City University of New York will “model the program,” Cuomo said: The schools can vaccinate students on campus directly, and the shots will eventually be made available to all campuses in the state.
Eligibility opened up last week to all New Yorkers 16 or older, so those people could also schedule an appointment at a mass vaccination site, pharmacy or other provider. Cuomo emphasized that it’s important for young people to get vaccinated both for their own health and for that of others. Even if someone contracts COVID -19 and is asymptomatic, they could give the virus to others who get more seriously sick, he noted.
The new policy was the result of a request made jointly at the end of March by SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras and the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities, said Drew Bogner, CICU’S interim president.
“We realized the clock was ticking and come the first part of May we knew students were going to go where they were going to go,” Bogner said, alluding to the end of the spring semester, when students will scatter for the summer.
It’s unclear what the size of future allotments will be due to the production problems faced by Johnson & Johnson, Bogner said; roughly 15,000 doses allocated to independent colleges and universities in the state were distributed last week and are already in students’ arms. Emily Morgese, CICU’S vice president of communications, said about 36 colleges and universities statewide are currently set up to administer vaccines, and some smaller schools are partnering with others to do so.
“Most of our colleges have set up comprehensive testing operations over the last year, so they have a lot of the infrastructure in place to do something like this,” Morgese said.
Also on the topic of colleges, Cuomo said that the state will allow schools to host graduation ceremonies starting May 1. The rules mirror the precautions for people to attend sporting events, with either vaccinations or negative tests required, as well as capacity restrictions on venues. The state’s recommendation remains virtual or drivein graduations, Cuomo said, as those options are safer, but officials wanted to provide the option for in-person events.