Vaccination pace picks up in Ulster, Ryan says
By the end of the day Thursday, more than 1,100 Ulster County senior citizens were to have received a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine at SUNY Ulster in Stone Ridge, and 100 doses of the new singleshot Johnson & Johnson vaccine were slated for delivery to homebound seniors on Friday, County Executive Pat Ryan said.
During a Facebook Live briefing Thursday afternoon, Ryan said he hopes the county will receive more doses of the J&J vaccine next week, and that homebound seniors are slated to receive those shots, as well. This is the first week the J&J vaccine has been available.
Ryan said 26,915 Ulster County residents, or 15.1% of the population, had received at least one dose of the Pfizer or Moderna two-shot vaccine regimen as of 11 a.m. Thursday and 13,358 residents (7.5%) had
received both doses.
The executive also said he hopes supplies of the vaccines, which have been ramped in the past week, will continue to increase.
“I feel very confident that if we got the supply tomorrow, we could get everybody vaccinated in two months,” Ryan said.
County vaccination information is available at vaccinateulster.com and call (845) 443-8888.
Ryan said residents all can try to can sign up to be vaccinated at a temporary state-run site at Marist College in Poughkeepsie. To check eligibility and register, go to covid19-vaccine.health.ny.gov or call the state’s COVID-19 Vaccination Hotline at (833) 6974829.
The Marist site is to operate from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
Ryan has been pressing for a state-run vaccination site in Ulster County — perhaps alongside the countyrun site in the Kate Walton Field House at Kingston High School — but so far to no avail.
By the numbers
Ryan said the number of active COVID-19 cases in Ulster County appears to have hit “a bit of a plateau” this week but that he remained optimistic
The county on Thursday reported 43 new cases of COVID, for a total since last March of 11,086, and an increase in the number of active cases to 1,523 from the 1,509 reported Wednesday.
The county has had 9,329 recoveries from COVID but also has lost 234 residents to the illness. No new deaths were reported Thursday.
The latest one-day rate of positive test results in Ulster is 3%, but Ryan said the most recent 48hour rate of 4.57% is “not a tolerable level” and puts county residents “at a significant risk of spread.”
Dutchess County reported Thursday that it had 1,070 active cases of COVID, up from the 1,058 it reported Wednesday.
Dutchess also reported a jump in hospitalizations, to 52 from 48 a day earlier, but no additional deaths. Dutchess has had 408 COVID-related deaths since last spring.
Dutchess has had a total of 22,549 confirmed cases of COVID since the pandemic began. Of those, there have been 21,071 recoveries.
The county’s most recent seven-day average of positive test results is 4.01%
In the schools
Newly reported cases of COVID-19 in area school districts are as follows, according to New York state.
• Kingston: One onsite student at the John F. Kennedy Elementary School, one on-site student at the Kingston High School, one off-site student at the M. Clifford Miller Middle School, and one on-site student at the Robert R. Graves Elementary School.
• Rondout: Two off-site students at Rondout Valley High School.
For local coverage related to the coronavirus, go to bit.ly/DFCOVID19.