New Vaccination Eligibility Begins on Sunday, February 14 Governor Andrew Cuomo today announced that New Yorkers with comorbidities and underlying conditions can make appointments at State-run mass vaccination sites beginning Sunday, February 14th.  The first of these appointments can be scheduled for Monday, February 15th. Local health departments will determine how, where and when to schedule appointments in their jurisdictions. The Governor stipulated that no local jurisdiction should accept appointments until vaccine allocations are known, and no earlier than February 14th.   To [...]

Letter to Hospitals from Dept. Of Health Commissioner Today New York State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker published a letter to all hospital administrators in the State to shift to crisis management mode. By entering into the crisis management mode, hospitals must balance patient load within their system. If they are an independent hospital, they must form a local partnership with neighboring hospitals to enable local patient load balancing. In addition, hospitals must be prepared to reach 15% staffed bed capacity growth [...]

Yellow Zone Expansion Early this afternoon during his press conference Governor Cuomo indicated that there had been no change in the State’s red or orange zones, but that there had been an expansion of several yellow zones. A yellow zone is defined as having a 3% positivity rate (7-day average) over the past 10 days and is in the top 10% in the State for hospital admissions per capita over the past week, and is experiencing week-over-week growth in daily admissions. [...]

New York City Indoor Dining Will Close on Monday During his COVID-19 update, Governor Cuomo today announced that indoor dining in New York City restaurants will close beginning Monday, December 14. Outdoor dining, takeout and delivery will be permitted to continue in the City. The Governor stated that this decision was based on CDC guidance on indoor dining and the City’s hospitalization rate, population density and rate of COVID-19 transmission. Mayor de Blasio today announced New York City is fully in a second [...]

NY’s Continued Push for Federal Aid Today Governor Andrew Cuomo, along with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins as well as various labor leaders from around the state published a letter addressed to the New York Congressional delegation emphasizing the importance of a “proportionate to the damage incurred” federal stimulus package. Governor Cuomo indicated that without federal money the steps the State would need to take to fill its growing budget [...]

New Adjustments to NYS on PAUSE After announcing last week that the State would be shifting it’s focus from positive test rates to hospitalization rates, in an attempt to keep hospitals from being overrun by future COVID-19 surges, Governor Cuomo announced new metrics today that would place a region back into NYS on PAUSE protocols. Regions that reach critical hospital capacity will be designated as a Red Zone under New York's micro-cluster strategy. Specifically, following the implementation of the state's "surge [...]