Pandemic response
Mccoy: They’ll likely be distributed to the homebound
Albany County getting its first doses of Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine.
Albany County was notified Monday that it is getting 500 shots of the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine, County Executive Dan Mccoy said.
At a COVID-19 briefing Monday, Mccoy said details about where those doses are going will be released soon, but urged people not to hold off on getting vaccinated because of a preference for one vaccine over another.
“I know there’s people who prefer different vaccines,” he said. “If you get a slot and you get a time, take the one that’s available to you. Don’t trust me, trust the doctors. Dr. (Anthony) Fauci said the same thing. Don’t wait for J&J. Don’t wait for whatever dose you think is better. Take that shot if you can get it because the quicker you get that in your arm the quicker we get to being back open.”
Some have expressed concern that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine may be less effective than vaccines developed by Pfizer-biontech and Moderna, which were found to be 94 to 95 percent effective at preventing moderate to severe COVID-19 during clinical trials. Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, by comparison, was found to be 66 percent effective at preventing moderate to severe illness.
But scientists have warned that strict comparisons such as these are not useful because the vaccines were tested at different stages in different parts of the world, where more contagious and potentially more severe variants were circulating. In addition, all three vaccines had similarly high efficacy rates (85 percent or above) when it comes to preventing severe disease that could land someone in the hospital or cause death.
Mccoy on Monday said the county will likely aim to distribute the Johnson & Johnson doses to homebound individuals because the one-dose vaccine would be easier to administer to that population than Pfizer and Moderna’s two-dose series.
Elsewhere in the region, county leaders again reminded people to keep an eye on their websites and social media channels for information about upcoming vaccination clinics. Columbia County opened registration Monday afternoon for a clinic this coming Wednesday at Columbia-greene Community College. Nearly 600 doses of the Pfizer vaccine will be available to people ages 60 and older, people with comorbidities and essential workers who make appointments through a link advertised on the county’s Facebook page.
As of Monday, 13.4 percent of the Capital Region’s population had been fully vaccinated and nearly 27 percent had received at least one dose of vaccine.
More deaths as cases hold steady
Three more Capital Region residents have died due to complications from COVID-19, county officials announced Monday.
Columbia, Rensselaer and Saratoga counties all reported one death each Monday. Rensse
laer County was the only one to provide details about the victim, who was an 81-year-old man from the city of Rensselaer.
Hospitalizations due to the disease ticked up over the weekend, growing from 94 on Saturday to 104 on Sunday, hospitals in the eight-county area reported.
As of Monday, the region was averaging 190 confirmed cases of the virus a day, measured over a seven-day period — down from 194 the day before and an alltime high of 1,009 back in January.
The share of people testing positive for coronavirus in the region over a seven-day average ticked up slightly to 1.8 percent on Sunday.
That number has hovered near 2 percent since mid-february.