Ryan decries lack of vaccine doses
Shipment expected today will be smaller than last week’s, and all shots spoken for
KINGSTON, N.Y. » Ulster County expects to get a new shipment of COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday — but only 1,000 doses, compared to the 1,200 it received and quickly used up a week ago,
County Executive Pat Ryan said Tuesday.
And all of the new doses will go to county residents who were signed up to get shots last week but couldn’t because the supply ran out, Ryan said.
The executive said during a Facebook Live event that the county remains far short of having enough doses for the 60,000 to 70,000 residents who are eligible to receive the vaccine in the current first phase of inoculation. And he said the blame lies with the federal government.
The rollout “has been frustratingly slow,” Ryan said, calling the federal effort so far a “fundamental failure.”
“We need more vaccines, and we need them now,” he said.
Ryan said Ulster County is getting fewer doses of the vaccine than last week because the state is, too. New York, which has more than 19 million residents, received 300,000 doses last week but only 250,000 this week, he said.
Ryan said Ulster County plans to administer its expected 1,000 new doses on Thursday, and perhaps Friday, at its “Point of Dispensing,” or POD, center in the
Kate Walton Field House on the grounds of Kingston High School.
Updated information about the Ulster County vaccination effort can be found online at vaccinateulster.com. Ryan said senior citizens who might have difficulty navigating the website can call the county Office for the Aging at (845) 340-3456.
In the schools
The Saugerties school district reported Tuesday that two Mount Marion Elementary School students tested positive for COVID, as well as one Riccardi Elementary School student, one junior/senior high school student and three junior/senior high school staff members.
By the numbers
Ulster County on Tuesday reported 82 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 out of the most recent 1,007 test results it received — a rate of 8.1%.
The number of active cases in the county rose 44 from the previous day’s report — from 2,308 to 2,352 — while two additional COVID-related deaths were reported, bringing Ulster’s total since last March to 177.
Ryan said 37 Ulster County residents were hospitalized with COVID as of Tuesday, including five in intensive care.
Ulster County has had 8,375 confirmed cases of COVID since the start of the pandemic and 5,846 recoveries.
Dutchess County on Tuesday reported having 2,517 active cases of COVID, down 59 from the previous day’s report. The county, though, also reported seven additional deaths, bringing its total since last March to 311.
Dutchess has had 16,541 confirmed cases of COVID since the start of the pandemic.
The county reported having 157 people hospitalized with COVID as of Tuesday.