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State starts downscaling vaccine clinics

Fireworks burst over the Empire State Plaza in Albany on Tuesday night to celebrate 70% of New York adults receiving their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. (Provided photo — Darren McGee, governor's office)

Mass-vaccination clinics run by the state Department of Health will start to downscale and shift resources to locally run vaccination efforts, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday. Potsdam’s clinic will be one of the first to close, starting Monday.

The shift in resources came a few days after the state celebrated reaching its goal of having 70% of New York adults at least partially vaccinated.

The vaccination clinics will start to scale down — based on demand, proximity to other clinics and other locally focused efforts — “over the course of weeks and months,” according to the governor’s office. The state will shift its focus to ZIP codes where the vaccination rate is lower than the statewide average. The clinics in Potsdam, Corning, Oneonta and at York College in New York City will be the first to close, on Monday.

“Our network of mass vaccination sites administered the biggest throughput of vaccinations in a short period of time, and thanks to their success we hit the milestones we needed to hit to get back to life as we know it,” Cuomo said. “Our statewide progress has been remarkable, but we still need to get more shots into people’s arms, particularly in areas that are still lagging on vaccinations. We have to go where the need is greatest, and so many of our mass sites will gradually start downscaling so that we can use our resources to target communities where vaccination rates are still low.”

New Yorkers can still visit am-i-eligible.covid19vaccine.health.ny.gov to find out where to get vaccinated.

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