State: Virus positives below 4% as New York reaches COVID-19 one-year mark
A woman gets vaccinated at Elmont Memorial High School in Elmont, where about 1,000 shots for COVID-19 were administered by Northwell Health on Saturday. Credit: Howard Schnapp
This story was reported by Rachelle Blidner, Robert Brodsky, Candice Ferrette, Bart Jones and David Reich-Hale. It was written by Jones.
New York marked the one-year anniversary of the state's first confirmed COVID-19 case on Monday, as positivity levels in tests continued to decline after 365 days that devastated the state, bringing vast swaths of society to a standstill and killing more than 38,000 people.
On Long Island, the positivity level dropped below 4% for the second day in a row, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said.
The seven-day average in test results from Sunday was 3.98% on Long Island. The statewide seven-day average was 3.08%, while daily positivity was 3.58% from Sunday test results.
Cuomo pointed to the numbers on the one-year anniversary as a sign of progress against a pandemic that last spring brought New York to its knees, shutting down schools, paralyzing the economy and halting other activities.
"It's been exactly one year since we first identified COVID in New York, and while we've made incredible progress toward defeating it, testing and vaccinating more and more New Yorkers, we need to stay vigilant," Cuomo said.
It's been a long and painful 12 months in which more than 1.6 million people in the state tested positive for the virus — including 311,487 Long Islanders — and 38,577 died of virus-related causes, according to the state's tally as of Feb. 28.
Even though the shutdown is easing, and many students are back in school at least part time, for instance, many sectors of the economy are struggling.
The biggest breakthrough in battling the pandemic was the development and emergency authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, given in two shots. That has led to a nationwide push to inoculate people included in initial priority groups such as medical personnel and police.
Dr. Stefan Muehlbauer, chairman of the department of emergency medicine at St. Francis Hospital in Flower Hill, said he remembers reading firsthand reports from Wuhan and Italy a few weeks before the pandemic hit Long Island.
He thought it was "almost implausible that something like this could devastate the medical landscape so quickly."
Muehlbauer said that while St. Francis had prepared for the pandemic’s arrival, the country had not. He said the inability to test people for COVID-19 was a great failing.
"Early on, we didn’t have diagnostic tests, and when we did, it took a week or more to get the results," he said. "The state put restrictions on who we could test, so we couldn’t test someone unless they traveled to a high-risk area or showed certain symptoms. Of course our area was more high-risk than anywhere else."
He added that despite the high volume and personal risk, health care workers never shied away from delivering care.
"We were also grateful for all the support from the community," he said.
Third vaccine on the way
On Saturday, the Food and Drug Administration authorized a third vaccine for COVID-19, the Johnson & Johnson one-dose shot. Those doses could start to arrive in states within hours.
The White House COVID-19 response team coordinator, Jeff Zients, during a livestreamed briefing by the team on Monday, outlined plans for allocating the Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week.
"Starting yesterday, we began executing on our plans by distributing 3.9 million doses of Johnson & Johnson to states, tribes and territories, and also to pharmacies and community health centers," Zients said. "Johnson & Johnson doses will be delivered as early as tomorrow. We’re allocating the J&J vaccine the exact same way we allocate Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccine — proportional to a state, tribe or territory’s population."
He added that, while the supply is limited for the next couple of weeks, shipments will increase in the latter half of March to up to 16 million additional doses.
"This week, we’ll distribute 3.9 million doses; that is the entirety of Johnson & Johnson’s current inventory," Zients said. "We’re getting these doses out the door right away to ensure vaccines get into arms as quickly as possible."
Cuomo said Monday that the New York State Clinical Advisory Task Force unanimously recommended use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in New York State.
The state expects to receive about 164,800 doses of that vaccine this week, pending final FDA authorization, he said.
The added doses will supplement New York State's expected Week 12 supply of 422,780 first doses and 290,500 second doses from Pfizer and Moderna, for a total of approximately 878,080 doses, he said. That will amount to New York State's highest weekly allocation yet.
Long Island waiting on deliveries
It was not clear Monday when Long Island would start receiving the new vaccine.
Suffolk will not be receiving any this week, said Derek Poppe, a spokesman for Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone.
Nassau County "is requesting as much of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine that we can get our hands on, but do not have an arrival date yet," said Mike Fricchione, a spokesman for Nassau County Executive Laura Curran.
About 250,000 Nassau residents have received at least one dose of a vaccine so far, Curran said.
Nassau continues to increase the number of shots it is giving, she said. Its vaccine allotment this week is 7,200, a 35% increase from the previous week’s allotment of 5,300.
Meanwhile, the latest state figures showed Nassau had 559 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, Suffolk had 575, and New York City had 3,503.
Statewide, 80 people died on Sunday of causes related to COVID-19, including four in Nassau and 10 in Suffolk.
The number of people hospitalized with the virus increased by 48, to 5,307.
Cuomo said in a statement that "our ongoing effort to get shots in arms is producing increasing numbers of sites where New Yorkers can get vaccinated, but we're going to need more supply to reach enough residents to put a serious dent in the virus' spread."
De Blasio criticized state-run sites
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday criticized state-run vaccination sites in the five boroughs, arguing they are not serving the community and are too often utilized by residents outside the city.
The mayor said 42% of vaccinations to date at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan were distributed to non-city residents, while 75% of shots at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens went to individuals who live outside the city. He said "grassroots" vaccination sites in local communities are a better approach.
On Friday, 76,000 people were vaccinated in New York City — its highest one-day total — while last week the city inoculated 338,000 residents, another record, de Blasio said. In total, 1.94 million doses have been given in the city.
His goal is at least 500,000 residents vaccinated each week, he said.
New York City health officials said the recently approved single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine has proved safe and effective.
"The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is 100% protective against people dying from COVID and is almost 100% protective against people being hospitalized with COVID," said Dr. Jay Varma, de Blasio’s senior adviser for the pandemic. "It has basically the same effectiveness that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines do against people being hospitalized and dying. So if you want to prevent the severe complications of COVID … take the first vaccine that is available because they all do exactly the same things."
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