Westchester Community College to Serve as COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Site

Efforts to immunize eligible New Yorkers with the COVID-19 vaccine are expanding in Westchester County, with officials setting up a new distribution site at Westchester Community College. 

County Executive George Latimer announced Thursday the Grasslands Road campus in Valhalla will serve as the area’s second mass vaccination site. The County Center in White Plains opened as the first state-run location on Jan. 13, with the facility immunizing about 1,000 people daily.

Latimer said the extra space is necessary with individuals now due for their second dose of the vaccine, on top of those receiving their first dose.  

“We need some additional space in order to help people,” Latimer said. “We are now facing giving out second shots to those people who three or four weeks ago received their first shot and so now we have to have additional space.”

The county has been distributing the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine, which is a two-dose shot that needs to be distributed 28 days apart, to those in phases 1A and 1B

The 1B group currently consists of police, firefighters, public safety workers, educators, transit personnel and people 65 and up. Health care workers, who have been eligible since the vaccine rolled out in December, are categorized as Phase 1A.

While there are approximately 7.1 million New Yorkers eligible to be inoculated, Gov. Andrew Cuomo granted local governments on Tuesday the power to expand the 1B eligibility group to restaurant workers, taxi drivers and developmentally disabled facilities.

Latimer said officials are working to survey just how many people in each occupational group want to be immunized to organize a system that gets them vaccinated more efficiently when the supply is available. The more doses of the vaccine the county has, the more cohorts of people can receive it, he said.

It was not specified when the vaccination site at Westchester Community College will be up and running. The expectation is the clinic will operate six-days-a-week, with the setup inside one of the education buildings. 

However, it was stressed that those wanting the vaccine should not show up at the County Center, Department of Health clinic or area pharmacies without first making an appointment.

“Do not under any circumstances just go to a vaccination site, you will be rejected,” Latimer said. “There are no vaccines to be had at the end of the day that we’re going to throw out that you can sneak in and get one. We make sure that we give a vaccine to every single person that we plan on.”

Click HERE to see if you’re eligible to make an appointment. 

The Latest COVID-19 Data in Westchester County, Putnam County & New York on Feb. 5

Coronavirus cases in Westchester County increased by 347 on Thursday, bringing the total number of positive cases to 95,989 since the start of the pandemic. There are now 9,343 active cases, a decrease of 576 over the previous day, state data shows. 

“The numbers show a continued diminution in the number of active cases,” Latimer said. “This is a good sign, the time we’ve seen some good signs probably in the last two-and-a-half months.”

The county’s daily positivity rate is 5.21 percent with 6,659 tests administered Tuesday. Overall, over 1.81 million COVID-19 tests have been dispensed in Westchester since March.

The county reported 10 more deaths on Thursday, bringing the COVID-19-related death toll to 1,948, according to the state tracker. There have been 54 virus deaths this week, with 273 fatalities since Jan. 1.

“That fatality number is not a comforting number,” Latimer said. “That small level double-digit number has been going on for over a week every night.”

As of Tuesday, there are 521 virus patients in Westchester hospitals, a decrease of 50 over last week. 

Putnam County’s total caseload reached 7,456, with 24 additional positive cases recorded on Thursday, state data shows. The county’s daily positivity rate is 6.86 percent, with 350 tests administered on Tuesday.

Putnam currently has 786 active cases, a decrease of 70 over the previous day. 

There have been 82 coronavirus-related deaths since March, state data shows. One person has died from the virus this week, with 15 overall fatalities since the start of 2021. 

No new deaths were reported on Thursday. 

Statewide there were 7,414 new positive cases on Thursday, with the daily positivity rate clocking in at 4.38 percent, state data shows.

There were 135 additional COVID-19-related fatalities, bringing the death toll to 35,767.

Statewide hospitalizations stand at 7,967, an decrease of 115 over the previous day. Across New York there have been 1,440,718 positive coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic.

Vaccine Update 

As of Thursday, New York’s health care distribution sites have received 1,554,450 first doses and administered 95 percent of those or 1,475,122. Eighty-one percent of first and second doses have been administered.

The county government has directly administered 27,447 vaccines to eligible residents, Latimer said, with 22,393 individuals inoculated since the County Center became a distribution site on Jan. 13. The county health department has immunized 5,054 people, he said.

Westchester Active Coronavirus Cases by Municipality 

Here are the active cases by municipality in Westchester as of Thursday. With a lag between the total number of cases confirmed by the state and the tally of cases by town, the total number of municipal cases might be slightly different than what the county’s active cases reflects.

• Ardsley – 31
• Bedford – 127
• Briarcliff Manor – 39
• Bronxville – 44
• Buchanan – 17
• Cortlandt – 259
• Croton-on-Hudson – 39
• Dobbs Ferry – 91
• Eastchester – 163
• Elmsford – 44
• Greenburgh – 327
• Harrison – 166
• Hastings-on-Hudson – 53
• Irvington – 41
• Larchmont – 48
• Lewisboro – 59
• Mamaroneck Town – 68
• Mamaroneck Village – 148
• Mount Kisco – 88
• Mount Pleasant – 206
• Mount Vernon – 730
• New Castle – 52
• New Rochelle – 820
• North Castle – 97
• North Salem – 27
• Ossining Town – 57
• Ossining Village – 283
• Peekskill – 268
• Pelham – 48
• Pelham Manor – 35
• Pleasantville – 61
• Port Chester – 273
• Pound Ridge – 19
• Rye Brook – 57
• Rye City – 92
• Scarsdale – 74
• Sleepy Hollow – 154
• Somers – 148
• Tarrytown – 115
• Tuckahoe – 61
• White Plains – 543
• Yonkers – 2,364
• Yorktown – 328