We Did It!
We finally have a mass vaccination site in Rockland! It took a lot of negotiations that were contentious at times with Albany. But through our doggedness, supported by local elected officials and many of our residents, we did it!
The startup commenced this past Thursday, April 1st at Rockland Community College, and that is not an April Fool’s joke! This will enable us to land a big hit on COVID-19 and help us turn the corner towards good health and will bring us much closer to a return to normalcy.
I appreciate all of our residents and our County Legislators, Village, Town, State and Federal officials who spoke out in support of our efforts of opening a mass vaccination site. This bipartisan push has finally gotten us to our goal of greater vaccine access for residents right here in Rockland. I also thank the Governor and his staff for listening to our concerns and stepping up to help protect the people of Rockland.
Because right now, we continue to grapple with one of the highest infection rates in New York State and besides the common-sense precautions of hand washing, social distancing and mask wearing getting vaccinated is our best chance of lowering this rate and getting back to the things we all enjoy without restrictions. I encourage Rocklanders to take advantage of this opportunity to get vaccinated right here in their home county; we spent months fighting for this site and now we must put it to use.
If you use it, more vaccines will come. We expect the RCC site to begin by vaccinating around 500 people a day and for that number to increase to 1,000 people a day shortly. An added benefit to so many people being vaccinated at this state-run site is that it will allow our Health Department to focus their efforts on areas of Rockland that aren’t doing as well with this process.
A zip code level breakdown of vaccine progress is available on our COVID-19 Map Dashboard here: https://bit.ly/2QI1Md5
We are nearing 30% of the County population having received at least one dose of vaccine. This is incredible progress which will be immediately aided by the opening of RCC as a mass vaccination site. Vaccine availability is increasing, and the end of this pandemic is in sight. I urge all of those who are eligible to look for an appointment, get your shot and help us get back to normal!
