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More good vaccine news locally

Mar 05, 2021 6:33 am
The local vaccine news continues to get better. The Daily Freeman reports that on March 4 more than 1,100 Ulster County senior citizens received a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine at SUNY Ulster in Stone Ridge, and 100 doses of the new single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be given to homebound seniors March 5, County Executive Pat Ryan said. Ulster County is set to vaccinate a record number this week, with more doses arriving there since January. President Joe Biden said on March 2 that all Americans would have access to the vaccine by the end of May. “I feel very confident that if we got the supply tomorrow, we could get everybody vaccinated in two months,” Ryan said. In Hudson, there is a pop-up vaccination clinic for "the minority and underserved community" on March 6 organized locally by Bill Hughes for the 1199 census tract, which includes Hudson’s 2nd Ward and part of the 4th Ward. It is for folks aged 65 and over, and is being held at the Hudson Firehouse at 77 North 7th Street. “Our intention is to saturate the 2nd Ward with calls, then move on to the 4th. You don’t want people not getting the shot because they don’t know about it,” said Hughes. The percentage of local citizens who have received at least one dose is reaching 15 percent, and higher. As of March 4, 18.3 percent of people in Columbia County have received one dose, and 14 percent of Greene County residents. Ulster County is at 15.6 percent, and Dutchess County is at 14.3 percent. In Albany County the percentage is 20.5, and 17.1 percent of folks in Rensselaer County have received at least one shot. That's the good news. The bad news is that the most recent 48-hour rate of positive COVID-19 tests in Ulster County is 4.57 percent, which is “not a tolerable level” and puts county residents “at a significant risk of spread” according to Ryan.