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Covid-19: Westchester Works To Ease Vax Hesitancy In Some Areas, Schedules New Pop-Up Clinics

Some communities in Westchester are lagging behind others in administering the COVID-19 vaccination as officials urge residents to get a shot in the arm to stop the spread of the virus.

With the Delta COVID-19 variant raging across the country and becoming the dominant strain of the virus, officials are attempting to reduce vaccination hesitancy in some areas, with new pop-up clinics planned around the county.

During a COVID-19 briefing on Monday, July 19, Westchester County George Latimer said that the county is “trying to customize strategies with communities that have significantly low vaccination rates.”

Specifically, Latimer said that officials have reached out in Peekskill, Mount Vernon, and parts of Yonkers to help begin easing vaccine hesitancy, with pop-up vaccination clinics scheduled there.

Pop-up clinics have been planned at the Westchester Community College Mount Vernon Extension Center on South Fifth Avenue between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Tuesday, July 20, with others scheduled this week in Ossining and Tuckahoe.

According to Latimer, 586,962 Westchester residents have completed the vaccination series, with 78.3 percent of residents over the age of 18 receiving at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Four people have died from COVID-19 in the past month, he noted.

“We have not yet made any decisions to ramp things back up, make any mask requirements … We are going to try and do everything we can to get more people vaccinated,” he said.

“We are prepared to make more pop-up clinics available, but we are concerns about what we are seeing.”

As of July 19, there were 503 active COVID-19 cases in Westchester, according to the county Department of Health, and there have been 2,483 virus-related deaths - including 2,295 Westchester residents - in the county since the pandemic began in March 2020.

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