With an eye toward targeting the ZIP codes with the lowest vaccination rates, Cuomo announced on Friday, June 18 that the state is shifting its resources to communities where the vaccination rate is below the state average.
“Given the statewide progress on vaccinations and the achievement of milestones that allowed the state to lift COVID-19 restrictions, certain state-run mass vaccination sites will begin to downscale and shift their resources for localized vaccination efforts,” officials said.
Officials noted that over the course of weeks and months, a number of sites will downscale based on demand, proximity to other vaccination sites, and other locally forced efforts.
“The transition reflects the state’s plan to focus resources on areas where ZIP code data shows the vaccination rate is lower than the statewide average,” they noted.
In his latest update, Cuomo said that the daily positive infection rate was 0.34 percent out of more than 110,000 COVID-19 tests administered statewide, and the number of hospitalizations has dipped to 548.
Nine new virus-related deaths were reported.
“Our network of mass vaccination sites administered the biggest throughput of vaccinations in a short period of time, and thanks to their success we hit the milestones we needed to hit to get back to life as we know it,” Cuomo said. “Our statewide progress has been remarkable, but we still need to get more shots into people’s arms, particularly in areas that are still lagging on vaccinations.
“We have to go where the need is greatest, and so many of our mass sites will gradually start downscaling so that we can use our resources to target communities where vaccination rates are still low.”
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