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Tech:NYC Digest: January 5

Tech:NYC Digest: January 5

January 05, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes

Tuesday, January 5, 2021As NYC works through another surge of the coronavirus, the digest focuses on the resources that help you make decisions about your businesses and your lives as New Yorkers.Was this digest forwarded to you? Subscribe here.

The latest: Mayor de Blasio wants total ban on UK travelers after first case of new strain found in NYS; Cuomo calls for more than the current 300,000 doses per week from the feds; 845 vaccine administration sites approved in NYC, setup effort continues to ramp up; new study shows majority of workers favor hybrid working style post-pandemic.

Confirmed Cases:

New York State: 1,041,028 (+12,666)
New York City: 448,510 (+4,863)
Statewide Fatalities: 30,802 (+149)
NYC Positivity Rates:
- NYS reports: 6.4 percent (+0.2 percent)
- NYC reports: 9.0 percent (no change)

General Updates:

Mayor de Blasio is asking the state (i.e.: Gov. Cuomo) for flexibility on vaccine eligibility rules. (ABC New York) The city is required to adhere to the state’s phased rollout approach, but the mayor wants to begin vaccinating people 75 years of age and older while they continue vaccinating essential healthcare workers.
Amid some calls that vaccine doses should be cut so more people can get the first dose faster, the FDA sent a new statement warning providers that splitting the supply has not been approved and administration of the two-dose regimen remains the requirement. (NPR)
After confirming the presence of the variant strain of coronavirus (which was first found in the UK) in New York State yesterday, Gov. Cuomo renewed his call that the federal government make testing mandatory for all travelers from other countries to the US. (NBC New York) While there hasn’t yet been a confirmed case of the variant in NYC, Mayor de Blasio called for a complete travel ban on visitors from the UK. Beginning tomorrow, England will be under a full national lockdown until at least mid-February. (Bloomberg)
A new ‘Am I Eligible?’ tool has launched to help New Yorkers determine when the vaccine is available to them and to connect them to provider sites and schedule appointments. Find more details and check your eligibility here.
And lastly, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that all eyes are on Georgia tonight and Congress tomorrow. Here’s what to expect with tonight’s runoffs and tomorrow’s electoral college count.

One good read: Our friends at the Regional Plan Association on one easy, high-impact tool we have in our arsenal to reduce the risk of virus spread: the COVID Alert NY app. (amNY) If you haven’t yet, download it here and help stop the spread.

The latest results: Even with a far smaller, socially distanced crowd, the Times Square New Year’s Eve ball drop retained its excitement and glamour (h/t J-Lo). Millions of people tuned in to mark the end of a draining year from the safety of their couch. Did you make it to midnight?

Today's poll

: Vaccine rollout has been difficult for a number of reasons: supply chain limitations, training and hiring, bureaucracy, funding, and more. To help it along, both Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio are

announcing updated plans

to expedite administration of the vaccine. Given distribution challenges so far, when do you think the vaccine will be available to you?

*|SURVEY: In the first quarter of 2021|*
*|SURVEY: In the spring|*
*|SURVEY: In the summer or later|*

Find the poll results from all previous editions of this newsletter here.

Reopening:

Here’s an update on current vaccine distribution:
- 900,000 vaccines have been distributed so far in the effort to vaccinate the 2.1 million healthcare workers that are currently eligible to receive it.
- The federal government effectively controls supply of the vaccine, and New York is waiting on more supply to cover the remainder of those healthcare workers.
- Right now, New York is getting about 300,000 doses per week — that means it will take at least another month before we have the supply to cover healthcare workers and can begin opening the process up to the next phase groups. (NY State of Politics)
And here’s what you can expect to come next:
- After healthcare workers, vaccinations move to Phase 1B, which will open up eligibility to other essential workers and residents 75 years of age and older — roughly 2.5 million people all together.
- In preparation for that, thousands of provider sites are being approved outside of the hospital systems. In NYC, 845 sites have been approved so far. Those include private medical practices, pharmacies, urgent care providers, and other health centers. Additionally, Gov. Cuomo is considering using senior centers and recreational centers as approved sites. (New York Post)
- Gov. Cuomo is also asking larger workforce sectors that have their own medical systems — police and fire departments, transit workers, and other public essential workers — to operationalize their own plans to administer the vaccine so provider sites can be more quickly open to the general public.
- Large drive-through vaccination sites at Javits Center and some SUNY and CUNY locations, as well as sites in churches and community centers, are also being set up.
Schools in all New York counties will now be allowed to remain open even if the seven-day positivity rate in those counties exceeds nine percent, the long-considered threshold for shutting schools down, as long as the positivity rate inside those school populations remains lower than the surrounding community’s rate. (Gothamist)
- The NYC Dept. of Education reported 345 new infections — 137 students and 208 school staff — yesterday.
- The current policy in NYC is that if two unlinked positive COVID cases are reported in a school building, it must shut down for ten days.
- More than 100 school buildings are currently closed based on that policy. You can see the map of all closure statuses here.
As of the latest data, no region has less than 30 percent capacity of available hospital beds. Under the current rules, if a region is on track to dwindle to 15 percent capacity in the next three weeks, that region will be subject to full lockdown measures. (NBC New York)