New York State reached a milestone in COVID vaccinations Friday: 85 percent of eligible adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine; 62.9 percent have completed the series.
Schoharie County lags in both columns:
According to the Centers for Disease Control, 50.8 percent of those eligible are fully vaccinated and 53.7 percent have received at least one dose.
Thirty-six new cases of COVID were reported between Tuesday, October 5 and Monday, October 11 for a positivity rate of 4.33 percent.
Those numbers come as a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction against the state’s vaccine mandate for health care workers, allowing them to refuse on religious grounds--a decision Governor Kathy Hochul vowed to fight.
“My responsibility as Governor is to protect the people of this state, and requiring health care workers to get vaccinated accomplishes that,” Governor Hochul said in a statement late Tuesday.
“I stand behind this mandate, and I will fight this decision in court to keep New Yorkers safe.”
The state has begun tracking and reporting breakthrough cases of COVID—cases in which someone tests positive for COVID more than 14 days after being fully vaccinated.
For the week of September 13—results lag because of the time it takes to match immunization records with testing and hospital reporting--fully-vaccinated New Yorkers had a 78.6 percent lower chance of becoming a COVID-19 case, compared to unvaccinated New Yorkers.
For about that same time period, the Schoharie County Health Department reported about 19 percent of its cases were breakthrough cases in people who were vaccinated.
Since then, Health Commissioner Amy Gildemeister said they’ve been too busy with cases to actively track breakthrough cases, but she estimates they’re about the same.
“There’s some significant viruses out there that look a lot like COVID but aren’t,” she said, something masks and other precautions last year helped prevent.
Those who do contract COVID after vaccinations tend to have much milder or even asymptomatic cases, Dr. Gildemeister said, but she’s troubled by a trend that’s showing younger—often, because of their age, unvaccinated people—hospitalized with COVID and much sicker.
“That’s why it’s so important to get vaccinated,” she said.
“No vaccines works 100 percent. We’re happy when the flu vaccine is 60 percent effective.”
Dr. Gildemeister said she and her colleagues are also seeing “significant and challenging” post-COVID symptoms; centers are even opening up to treat them, she said.
The county has reduced the number of COVID vaccination clinics it’s been doing; people just weren’t coming out, Dr. Gildemeister said.
That will change with the expected FDA approval of vaccines for those 5-11 years-old on October 26.
If that goes off as expected, the Health Department will offer clinics at all of the county schools in November.
COVID numbers in local schools as of Tuesday, according to the state Health Department, were:
Cobleskill-Richmondville—18.
Schoharie—12.
Middleburgh—1.
Sharon Springs—0
Jefferson—18.
Gilboa-Conesville—2.
Worcester--0
Schoharie County has reported 21 COVID fatalities.