2 pharmacies offer COVID-19 boosters as another LI college requires vaccination
St. Joseph's College will now require COVID-19 vaccinations for both students and staff, officials said Saturday. St. Joseph's Patchogue campus is shown on Dec. 19, 2018. Credit: Barry Sloan
Walgreens and CVS started on Saturday administering a third dose of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to transplant recipients and others with compromised immune systems, the companies said.
The move follows authorization for a third shot by the Food and Drug Administration and new guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It also comes as Long Island registered 691 new cases Friday, 335 in Nassau and 356 in Suffolk, according to state figures released Saturday.
The state had 13 COVID-19-related deaths on Friday, one of them in Suffolk, the figures showed.
The CDC has said immunocompromised people often have a poor response to the vaccine and can suffer severe, prolonged illness when exposed to the coronavirus. A third shot could jump-start their immune system, the agency said.
People eligible for the third booster shot include those undergoing cancer treatment, stem cell or organ transplant recipients, people living with HIV or those who are receiving immunosuppressive treatments.
For Walgreens, same-day appointments are available on a walk-in basis at select Walgreens stores. Patients should bring their vaccination record to appointments and will be required to attest to their eligibility, the company said.
"Walgreens is committed to administering COVID-19 vaccines to our most vulnerable populations as quickly and safely as possible," said Kevin Ban, Walgreens chief medical officer.
CVS said people could schedule vaccination appointments on their website.
The extra dose is available only to those high-risk groups — not the general public.
The CDC recommends that people receiving the third dose should get the same vaccine as their initial series. The third shot should be administered at least four weeks after completing the second shot.
Patients must be 18 or older to receive the Moderna vaccine, or 12 and older to receive the Pfizer vaccine. The opportunity for a booster shot does not apply to the one-shot vaccine from Johnson & Johnson.
Elsewhere, St. Joseph’s College, which has a campus in Patchogue, will now require COVID-19 vaccinations for both students and staff, as well as masking by everyone on its campus, officials said.
The school had recently implemented a vaccination mandate for students returning to in-person learning this fall.
"With the continued increase in COVID infection and hospitalization rates across the country and in our own region, we are now faced with the reality that it is also necessary to mandate vaccination for all SJC faculty and staff," said a college statement.
Faculty and staff not already vaccinated will need to begin the vaccination process no later than Sept. 3, officials said.
In addition, the college will be reinstating its full mask mandate for all — including students, faculty, staff and visitors — while in indoor public spaces, regardless of vaccination status.
Most private colleges and universities on Long Island are requiring students to get vaccinated, and others, including Long Island University, will now require employees to be vaccinated as well.
Schools in the SUNY system will require all students to get vaccinated once a vaccine receives full FDA approval. In the meantime, residential students must get vaccinated now.
Across the state, a total of 4,474 of the 152,641 people tested were positive for the virus on Friday, for a positivity rate of 2.93%, state figures show.
The state had 1,654 people hospitalized, an increase of 93, and 347 people in intensive care units, a bump of 49, according to state figures.
The Island’s seven-day positivity average was 3.69% on Friday, a slight dip from the 3.75% rate on Thursday, the figures showed.
"The Delta variant is a very serious threat, especially for people who are still unvaccinated," Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said. "We’ve made great progress considering where we were when COVID first ambushed our state, but if we want to defeat this virus, it is imperative that every New Yorker takes the vaccine. Every shot in the arm brings us closer to victory, so if you haven’t yet, I urge you to come to one of our many sites and get vaccinated — for your own safety and for everyone you love."
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Craig Schneider is a Long Island native and Stony Brook University alumnus. He joined Newsday as a general assignment reporter in January 2018 after 20 years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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