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Federal mass vaccination site to open in Albany
Edward McKinley is reporting for the Times Union a mass vaccination site will open in Albany at the Washington Avenue Armory run jointly by federal and state entities, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced February 17. A minimum of 7,000 shots a week will be delivered at the site. Three other sites are opening in Yonkers, Buffalo and Rochester, joining the two mass-vaccination sites already operational in Queens and Brooklyn. All six are designed to reach "socially vulnerable communities," meaning predominantly people of color who would otherwise have less access to the vaccine and are on average more distrusting of it. “This is a very big and aggressive effort to address vaccine hesitancy in the black community, and I thank them very much for that," Cuomo said of the federal government. "You are going to see a lower vaccination rate with the black community. Part of it is access — but we are working very hard on access — and part of it is hesitancy.” He acknowledged that the current system of vaccine distribution is a headache for the millions of New Yorkers seeking shots. Read more in the Times Union.