SUNY Students Need COVID Vaccine For Fall; NYS Making Vaccine More Accessible
Yesterday, Governor Andrew Cuomo made the announcement that for any SUNY and CUNY students attending in-person classes this fall, they must provide proof of a COVID-19 vaccine. According to Cuomo's Office, vaccine clinics have slowed down across the state as well as across the country and Cuomo wants to change that since across New York State, at this point, the percentage of state residents 18 and older that are fully vaccinated is at 48.9%. The percentage of New Yorkers that have had at least one dose of the vaccine is at 60.2%.
Cuomo hopes that private colleges will require vaccinations as well. New York State is working aggressively to make sure that all state residents have easy access to the vaccine and recently made all state-run vaccination sites accept walk-ins. In addition, Cuomo has created pop-up vaccination sites, bringing the vaccine to residents, especially in densely populated areas.
Local health departments are also working hard to get COVID vaccines into area residents as well. One example of this locally is that the Otsego County Department of Health has set up four vaccination sites for those 16 and older with the Pfizer vaccine at area schools on different dates:
5-11-21 at Cherry Valley Central School
5-13-21 at Richfield Springs Central School
5-17-21 at Schenevus Central School
5-18-21 at Morris Central School
All the above sites require appointments although Cuomo is urging organizations holding clinics to accept walk-ins to increase attendance and increase the numbers of those vaccinated. I suspect we'll see more walk-in clinics in the near future, but with we haven't seen this yet in county health vaccine clinics.