ALBANY COUNTY — Starting on Wednesday, New Yorkers who are 60 and older will be eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations.

Governor Andrew Cuomo made the announcement twice on Tuesday — once at the state fairgrounds in Syracuse, where, Cuomo said, 9,500 vaccinations had been administered in the last 24 hours, second only to the Javits Center in New York, and then again in an afternoon press briefing.

Formerly, New Yorkers, to be eligible — after all the nursing home residents and workers had been offered vaccine — had to be 65 or older, or had to have comorbidities, or had to be on a list of essential workers.

Cuomo also announced two other big changes in the state’s administration of vaccine doses. Starting on Wednesday, March 17:

— Eligibility will expand to public-facing government and public employees, not-for-profit workers who provide public-facing services to needy New Yorkers, and essential in-person public-facing building service workers.

“That includes public works people, social service people, child service care workers, DMV workers, a lot of the CSEA employees, also election workers, et cetera,” said Cuomo; and

— All providers can vaccinate anyone who is eligible to receive the vaccine, except for pharmacies.

“That means right now, the local health departments have certain categories they can do, FQHCs have certain categories,” Cuomo said of Federally Qualified Health Centers, “hospitals have certain categories. They will all be able to vaccinate everyone except for pharmacies.”

Pharmacies will be limited to vaccinating just two groups of people — educators, and people 60 and older.

“Teachers is a federal mandate, part of Joe Biden’s wanting to open school,” said Cuomo. “Pharmacies are equipped to check ages, 60-plus, 65-plus, it’s a driver’s license; they sell cigarettes, et cetera, so they’re accustomed to checking age. They’re not accustomed to checking work group identification, et cetera. So pharmacies will just do age, 60-plus, and teachers who are also easily identified.”

Cuomo also said he learned in a White House call that vaccine allocation will remain flat for the next two weeks.

“We had that very large Johnson & Johnson surge last week that we’re administering this week,” he said of the most recently authorized, one-shot vaccination. “That’s why we opened 24-hour mass vaccination sites.”

The state announced on Monday it was opening 10 new mass-vaccination sites, including one in the Capital Region, in Queensbury.

Cuomo said the vaccine allocation in April should start to increase dramatically.

“We still have a racial disparity,” Cuomo said on Tuesday. “I don't think any state is working harder at breaking down that racial disparity, but it still exists. So we’ll have houses of worship that can actually be pop-up sites themselves, and we encourage houses of worship to come forward to do that.”

As of Tuesday, 19.4 percent of New Yorkers had received at least one dose of vaccine, according to a release from the governor’s office, and 9.6 percent had had a second shot.

The first two vaccines to get federal emergency authorization — Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech — each require two doses administered several weeks apart.

In Albany County, as of Tuesday morning, 23.7 percent of residents had received a first dose, according to a release from Albany County Executive Daniel Mccoy’s Office.

New bills and a law

Cuomo on Tuesday signed into law the COVID-19 Emergency Protect Our Small Businesses Act of 2021 with a chapter amendment.

The law establishes eviction and foreclosure protections for small businesses. These new protections build off of an executive order and commercial eviction and foreclosure moratorium that started in March 2020. The legislation will initially apply to small businesses with under 50 employees that demonstrate a financial hardship, as well as small businesses with 10 or fewer units.

“The law now basically applies to businesses at 50 employees,” he said at Tuesday’s press briefing. “We’ve worked with the legislature; we’re going to increase that to 100-plus employees.

“And there’s a further agreement that will further expand the protections to small businesses with 100 or fewer employees and businesses with 500 or fewer that were closed to in-person operations by executive order or Department of Health directive for two or more weeks between May 15, 2020, and May 1, 2021. So, if you were closed by executive order, this bill will provide relief up to 500 employees.”

At the state level, Senator Michelle Hinchey, a Democrat representing District 46, announced on Tuesday that she has introduced legislation (S5398) that would require the state’s Department of Health to open state-run COVID-19 vaccination sites in every county of the state.

Under the bill, counties would have the ability to opt out of the site requirement by providing written notification to the state’s health department. Hinchey’s bill would also require the department to make these new county-based sites accessible through the state’s Am I Eligible website.

“State-run vaccination sites operate with great efficiency, but they tend to be clustered in high-density urban communities, which makes it next to impossible for people living in our more rural areas, especially our seniors, to easily get a vaccine,” said Hinchey in a statement.

Also on Tuesday, at the federal level, representatives Paul Tonko, a New York Democrat representing the Capital Region, and John Katko, a New York Republican, and senators Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, and Timothy Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, introduced the COVID-19 Mental Health Research Act, legislation that would fund research to study the effects the COVID-19 pandemic has on the mental health of Americans, with an emphasis on its impact on children and health-care providers.

Tonko and Klobuchar are hosting an open press mental health impact forum on Thursday with frontline nurses and human-services organizations likely to be impacted by this legislation.

“Rebuilding America after this pandemic will take more than vaccines and concrete, it will take a rigorous focus on the toll this pandemic has taken on every American, especially for our health care workers who continue to serve bravely on the frontlines of this crisis,” Tonko said in a statement. “Every day they show up to work, they risk exposure to this deadly virus and shoulder an unimaginable emotional burden for us all to keep our families and communities safe. We need to do more to support them and make sure we work to understand even the hidden costs they are bearing.”

USDA extends free meals

Also on Tuesday, the United States Department of Agriculture announced the nationwide extension of several waivers that allow all children to continue to receive nutritious meals this summer when schools are out of session. These flexibilities are now available through Sept. 30, 2021.

Right now, according to a USDA release, up to 12 million children are living in households where they may not always have enough to eat; summer meals will provide relief to many children in families who have been hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and are fighting daily to put food on the table.

The waivers extended on Tuesday allow for safe meal distribution sites that serve all children for free, regardless of income. In addition, the waivers allow “summer meal programs” to be made available in all areas at no cost; allow meals to be served outside of the normally required group settings and meal times; and allow parents and guardians to pick up meals for their children, including bulk pick-up to cover multiple days of feeding children.

Newest numbers

McCoy, in his Tuesday morning release, cautioned that the county’s seven-day average for percent positive rates is beginning to trend upward and is now at 2.1 percent.

“It’s important to keep in mind that this virus is still a threat, and we need to continue being vigilant as vaccine distribution ramps up to keep the spread under control,” McCoy said in a statement. “Please continue to wear a mask, socially distance, avoid private gatherings with those outside of your household, and get tested if it’s needed.”

As of Tuesday morning, Albany County has had 21,024 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 53 new cases since Monday, McCoy said.

Of the new cases, 33 did not have clear sources of infection identified, 18 had close contact with someone infected with the disease, and two were health-care workers or residents of a congregate setting.

The five-day average for new daily positives has increased to 66.2 from 64.6. There are now 532 active cases in the county, down from 540 yesterday.

The number of Albany County residents under quarantine dropped to 1,384 from 1,453. So far, 66,179 residents have completed quarantine. Of those, 20,492 of them had tested positive and recovered. That is an increase of 59 recoveries since Monday.

There were seven new hospitalizations overnight, and there are now 30 county residents hospitalized from the virus — a net increase of two. There are currently five patients in intensive-care units, up from three on Monday.

Albany County’s COVID-19 death toll remains at 361.