ALBANY COUNTY — Beginning Feb. 15, New Yorkers with comorbidities — including kidney and lung diseases, heart problems, diabetes, obesity, and cancer — will be eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations.

“Comorbidities and age are the major factors in COVID mortality. Just hear this one number: 94 percent of the people who die from COVID are people with comorbidities or other underlying conditions. Ninety-four percent,” said Governor Andrew Cuomo at his press conference on Friday.

Hospitals across the state have one more week, Cuomo said, to vaccinate their workers then that allotment of vaccine doses will be shifted to vaccinate adults of any age with comorbidities.

“The hospitals have had eight weeks to focus on their staff and that’s how we achieved the 75 percent,” said Cuomo of the percentage statewide of now-vaccinated hospital workers. “We’re giving them one more week to do the last workers.”

Since vaccine doses first became available two months ago, Cuomo has prioritized hospital workers, saying they are needed to keep hospitals running at capacity.

New York is now receiving about 300,000 doses per week from the federal government to vaccinate over 7 million eligible adults.

The goal is to vaccinate enough residents before one of the new variants of COVID-19 becomes dominant.

“We’ve identified 15 new variants-of-interest cases— 59 total U.K. strains in New York now,” said Cuomo on Friday of the highly transmissible B.1.1.7 strain first identified in the United Kingdom.

As of Friday evening, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention site listed New York State as having just 42 cases and the nation having 611 cases, with most of them in Florida and California.

“All those numbers are now on the way down,” Cuomo said of infection rates. “... ‘Well what could change it?’ A variant strain could change it. A variant strain that is more infectious, more transmittable, or more lethal, or a variant strain that is resistant to the vaccine. Those could all be game changers.”

Cuomo also said it is a “big deal” that Johnson & Johnson filed for an Emergency Use Authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for its COVID-19 vaccine, which requires just one shot; the two vaccines with current emergency use authorization — from Moderna and from Pfizer and BioNTeh — require two shots to be fully effective.

Also the Johnson & Johnson vaccine does not require the ultra-cold storage that the Pfizer vaccine does. However, its testing results, which may have been affected by variants that weren’t around when Pfizer and Moderna were testing, show that it is less effective.

Cuomo stressed about vaccine doses, “We do not have a supply that can reach everyone. We understand that, so the prioritization is to reach those people who are most at risk or most essential to this period of time.”

Local health departments, like Albany County’s will have one week to prepare for vaccinated people with comorbidities.

Cuomo said the state worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to come up with the list of conditions that would make New York adults eligible to receive a vaccination:

— Cancer (current or in remission, including 9/11-related cancers);

— Chronic kidney disease;

— Pulmonary disease, including but not limited to, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), asthma (moderate to severe), pulmonary fibrosis, cystic fibrosis, and 9/11-related pulmonary diseases;

— Intellectual and developmental disabilities including Down syndrome;

— Heart conditions, including but not limited to heart failure, coronary artery disease, cardiomyopathies, or hypertension (high blood pressure);

— Immunocompromised state (weakened immune system) including but not limited to solid organ transplant or from blood or bone marrow transplant, immune deficiencies, HIV, use of corticosteroids, use of other immune-weakening medicines, or other causes;

— Severe obesity (body mass index of 40 kg/m2), obesity (body mass index of 30 kg/m2 or higher but less than 40 kg/m2);

— Pregnancy;

— Sickle cell disease or Thalassemia;

— Type 1 or 2 diabetes mellitus;

— Cerebrovascular disease (affects blood vessels and blood supply to the brain);

— Neurologic conditions including but not limited to Alzheimer's Disease or dementia; and

— Liver disease.

Prior to Cuomo’s announcement, Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy at his Friday morning press conference continued to push for people with comorbidities to be eligible for vaccinations.

He said a text from Albany’s mayor, Kathy Sheehan, sent to him on Thursday night almost made him want to cry. She related the plight of a 64-year-old man with Stage 4 cancer who could not get a vaccine.

“This is what we’ve been advocating for, people … There’s a population of people out there for some reason falling through the cracks,” said McCoy on Friday morning.

He called it one of many stories and said, “This is the stuff that keeps us up at night.”

McCoy said the county could not go outside the rules set by the state for administering vaccines. “I have a potential of a million-dollar fine and loss of vaccines going forward,” he said.

Newest numbers

McCoy opened his press conference by announcing the death of four more county residents from COVID-19: two men in their seventies, a woman in her seventies, and a woman in her eighties.

Their deaths bring the county’s toll to 328.

As of Friday morning, Albany County has had a total of 18,830 confirmed cases, including 121 news cases since Thursday.

Of the new cases, 91 did not have clear sources of infection identified, 24 had close contact with someone infected with the disease, and six were health-care workers or residents of congregate settings.

The five-day average for new daily positives has decreased to 105.6 from 112.8. There are now 1,143 active cases in the county, down from 1,220 on Thursday.

The number of Albany County residents under mandatory quarantine decreased to 2,394 from 2,511. So far, 56,623 residents have completed quarantine. Of those, 17,687  had tested positive and recovered. That is an increase of 191 recoveries since Thursday.

There were eight new hospitalizations overnight, and there are 112 county residents currently hospitalized from the virus — a net decrease of 14. There are now 15 patients in intensive-care units, one fewer than Thursday.

Among the state’s 10 regions, the Capital Region continues to have the worst rate for available hospital beds — at 27 percent — and of available ICU beds — at 15 percent, according to a Friday release from the governor’s office.

Currently, 374 Capital Region residents are hospitalized with the disease, which is 0.03 percent of the region’s population, a decrease from the 0.04 percent it has been for a month.

Statewide, 0.04 percent of New Yorkers are hospitalized with the virus, leaving 34 percent of hospital beds available.

Currently, 218 of the Capital Region’s 247 ICU beds are filled. Statewide, 26 percent of ICU beds are available.

The Capital Region, as of Thursday, as a seven-day average, has an infection rate of 3.92 percent.

Statewide, the positivity rate is 4.67 percent.

Albany County, as of Thursday, as a seven-day rolling average, has an infection rate of 4.3 percent, according to the state’s dashboard.

The capital Region has administered 121.861 of the 151,210 vaccine doses it has been given, which is 81 percent.

Statewide, 80 percent of available doses have been administered.