The first batch of vaccines for New Yorkers
Cuomo: NY will have vaccines for 170,000 residents by Dec. 15
People wait on a line stretching around a block for a clinic offering COVID-19 testing on Nov. 18 in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn. Credit: AP/Bebeto Matthews
Cuomo said the first batch of the vaccine for New Yorkers, expected to arrive Dec. 15 from Pfizer, will go to nursing home residents and staff.
The next batches or any left over from the first will focus on highest priority health care workers, including personnel at emergency rooms and intensive care units, Cuomo said.
Moderna is expected to deliver its own batch of vaccines to the state about two weeks after Pfizer's arrive, though Pfizer will continue to ship a second and successive batches starting this month.
After Pfizer's first delivery, Moderna's "is supposed to be just around the corner. And then they say it will be a constant every 7 to 10 days another shipment, another shipment, another shipment," Cuomo said. "So it will be on a rolling basis."
The vaccines require a double dosage and their availability to different sectors of the population will be prioritized according to federal guidelines reviewed by the state. The second dose is taken 21 days after the first.
Both companies are currently seeking federal safety and efficacy approvals for the vaccines, which could come within days.
The number of new positives reported today: 826 in Nassau, 966 in Suffolk, 3,198 in New York City and 8,973 statewide.
The map below shows the concentration of cases in communities across Long Island.
This map shows the concentration of cases on Long Island, with Nassau data as of Monday and Suffolk data as of Tuesday.
Search the map, and view charts showing the latest local trends in testing, hospitalizations, deaths and more.
Long Island ramps up COVID-19 testing sites
Dr. William C. Gehrhardt, medical director at Northwell Heath's Dolan Family Health Center, administers a COVID-19 test in Greenlawn on Tuesday. Credit: Barry Sloan
Long Island government and medical officials announced two more free COVID-19 testing sites in Nassau and Suffolk, which they say will be key to slowing the virus' spread.
Northwell Health opened a site Monday at its Dolan Family Health Center in Greenlawn, in collaboration with Suffolk County and the Town of Huntington. Nassau’s new site at Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital in Oceanside offers drive-thru rapid testing under a permanent "all weather tent."
While Suffolk had "bucked the trend" for months, the surge is now here, County Executive Steve Bellone said Tuesday. He said the positivity rate in the county was now "on the cusp" of 5% when it had previously been below 1%.
Dr. William Gehrhardt, the Dolan Health Center's medical director, said it does not provide rapid testing, but results are available within one to three days. Bellone said the county hoped to be able to provide rapid tests to the health center soon.
Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, in a phone interview, said, "Until we have the vaccine, testing is the key to getting the virus under control."
CDC to shorten length of quarantine to 10 days
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to shorten the recommended quarantine after exposure to someone who tests positive.
According to a senior administration official, the new guidelines will allow people who have come in contact with someone infected with the virus to resume normal activity after 10 days, or 7 days if they receive a negative test result. That’s down from the 14-day period recommended since the start of the pandemic.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the announcement, said the policy change has been discussed for some time as scientists have studied the incubation period for the virus.
While the CDC had said the incubation period for the virus was thought to extend to 14 days, most individuals became infectious and developed symptoms between 4 and 5 days after exposure.
Cops: Party with nearly 400 guests broken up over violations
The Brookhaven home where Suffolk police said a party was broken up early Monday. Credit: Google Earth
A planned party in Brookhaven of up to 500 attendees was broken up over pandemic restrictions violations before it could start, Suffolk's police chief said Tuesday.
Between 300 and 400 people amassed early Monday morning at 51 Hawkins Lane, a 5,000-square-foot home on a 10-acre property on a dead-end street, said Suffolk County Police Chief of Department Stuart Cameron.
"We were able to break this party up — quite a lot of people were still in their cars — so we reduced their opportunity to expose themselves to each other, which, I think was great. I think we kind of averted a real potential superspreader event," he said.
The owner of the home rented it to a New Jersey resident who was planning to host the party, Cameron said.
Experts: Pandemic exposes inequities in public schools
Educational inequities that existed in public schools before the pandemic have now become more pronounced, experts discussed in a Newsday Live webinar on Tuesday.
The panel told the audience that remote-learning and hybrid-learning mandates have exposed a digital divide in educational systems. Students in poorer districts, students of color, students learning English as a second language and those with disabilities and special needs were already at a disadvantage on the learning curve before the pandemic, and now are even more as they and their teachers struggle to keep the pace.
"Very, very simply it really gets down to resources," said Dr. William Johnson, the state monitor for Hempstead Public Schools, "and the ability to maximize those resources."
Watch the replay of this webinar here.
More to know
Nassau County will freeze property values in 2022-23 at the previous year's level, in an effort to avoid sharp changes in assessments after the pandemic caused volatility in the housing market and spiking home prices, officials said.
When the first vaccine shots become available, health care workers and nursing home residents should be at the front of the line, an influential government advisory panel voted Tuesday.
British officials authorized a vaccine for emergency use, which greenlights the world’s first shot against the virus by giving a go-ahead for the vaccine developed by American drugmaker Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech.
The CDC urged Americans to stay home over the upcoming holiday season, but to consider getting tested for the virus before and after traveling if they decide to do so.
MTA commuters invited to weigh in on the agency’s latest fare hike proposal had a largely unified message: Now is not the time.
Pending home sales on Long Island jumped last month, but the pace of sales is starting to return to normal after a surge from record-low interest rates and pent-up demand, a report shows.
News for you
People get tested for COVID-19 in Great Neck on Nov. 9. Credit: Howard Schnapp
Everything you need to know about COVID-19 tests. Where can you get tested, what kind of tests are available and how accurate are the rapid tests? Get answers to frequently asked questions about testing on Long Island.
Virtual concerts from My Father’s Place. The club in Roslyn may be closed to the public, but it's livestreaming virtual concerts so fans can still get their fix. On Dec. 26, Fleetwood Mac tribute band Fleetwood Macked will make its virtual concert debut.
In the market for a car? The pandemic initially slowed car sales, but sales data shows many new-car buyers are now making more expensive purchases than ever. Here's a list of some of the best cars that can be financed for less than $399 per month.
A Christmas concert from your living room. Every holiday season, singer Darlene Love brings her annual Christmas concert to Long Island — and the pandemic isn't stopping her this year. The Patchogue Theatre is presenting a new livestream of her show on Dec. 5.
Plus: The Girl Scouts' annual drive-through holiday light show has returned to Shirley. It kicked off Dec. 1 at Smith Point County Park. Watch a video to see what the experience is like.
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Commentary
The struggle to document COVID-19 for future generations. Pamela Ballinger, who holds the Fred Cuny Chair in the history of human rights at the University of Michigan, writes for The Washington Post: In the era of Instagram, how do we build a visual archive of the multiple forms of human suffering wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic? As countless individuals across the world document the impact of COVID-19 on their own lives, universities, museums and other nonprofits actively solicit materials to build future collective archives of the pandemic.
In some instances, like that of the Bentley Library at the University of Michigan, the focus of the collected materials remains resolutely local, in this case documenting the campus experience. Other projects, like the University of Arizona's "A Journal of the Plague Year," adopt a much broader aim in their invitation to collaborators to serve "not just as historians, but as chroniclers, recorders, memoirists, as image collectors" in sharing "how the pandemic has affected our lives, from the mundane to the extraordinary."
Although this call to document our current moment stresses the active role played by potential participants, it reduces the work of visualizing the pandemic to assembling images. Keep reading.
Erin Serpico is an assistant web producer who joined Newsday in November 2018. Originally from New Jersey, she now covers community events and produces local content for newsday.com while also helping run the homepage.
