How Many New Yorkers Have Received the Vaccine Shot? One-Third
Weather: A sunny day ahead with a high in the mid-60s. It should be equally clear tonight, with the temperature dropping to the mid-40s.
Alternate-side parking: In effect until April 29 (Holy Thursday, Orthodox).
One in three New York State residents has received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Sunday, marking another milestone in the drive to end the pandemic.
The rate is largely consistent with vaccinations nationwide — 32 percent of Americans have received at least one dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the pace has so far not been fast enough to contain the spread of contagious virus variants.
This week, every New Yorker age 16 and older will be able to get vaccinated, making vaccines available to thousands more. But worries about the spread of variants persist.
[Variants carrying mutations that make the coronavirus both more contagious and in some cases more deadly are spreading, prolonging the pandemic.]
The context
Mr. Cuomo said on Sunday that more than 10,360,000 doses had been administered in New York State. But even as the number and pace of vaccinations increase, the pandemic in New York has not meaningfully abated.
Mr. Cuomo said that 4,373 people were hospitalized, and the seven-day average rate of positive test results statewide was 3.56 percent. Three weeks ago, Mr. Cuomo said there were 4,486 people hospitalized and the average positivity rate was 3.15 percent.
Some experts have pointed to the continued spread of contagious variants as the cause behind stubbornly high case counts. Others have blamed the loosening of some restrictions.
The changes
Even as Mayor Bill de Blasio urged people to continue to take precautions against spreading the virus, he said Sunday that Easter coincided with the beginning of “a wonderful season of renewal, hope, and rebirth.” Many churches welcomed parishioners for in-person services on Sunday.
Music, dance, theater and comedy began to return to the city last week, including a dance show in the rotunda of the Guggenheim and a concert at a cultural center in Hudson Yards, where a cavernous indoor-outdoor venue held an audience of about 150.
And in a sign of how colleges and universities might adapt, Cornell University said last week that it plans to require a Covid-19 vaccination for students returning in the fall to its main campus in Ithaca, N.Y., as well as to its campuses in Geneva, N.Y., and Roosevelt Island in New York City.
From The Times
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And finally: ‘Broadway is coming back!’
The Times’s Michael Paulson writes:
Three hundred and eighty-seven days after Broadway went dark, a faint light started to glimmer Saturday.
There were just two performers — one at a time — on a bare Broadway stage. But together they conjured up decades of theater lore, invoking the songs and shows and stars that once filled the grand houses in and around Times Square.
The 36-minute show, before a small crowd scattered across an auditorium with 1,700 seats, was the first such experiment since the coronavirus pandemic forced all 41 Broadway houses to close last March, and industry leaders are hoping it will be a step on what is sure to be a slow and bumpy road to eventual reopening.
The dancer Savion Glover and the actor Nathan Lane performed a pair of pieces created for the occasion. The event was the first of a series. The organizers say they anticipate 10 programs in Broadway houses over the next 10 weeks. But most producers expect that full-scale plays and musicals will not return to Broadway until the fall.
The performance employed a number of safety protocols that are now common at this first stage of the resumption of live performance: mandatory masks, socially distanced seating, staggered arrival times. The audience — just 150 virus-tested mask-wearers spread across St. James Theater — was all invited, mostly workers for two theater industry social service organizations.
But it was an injection of hope for an art form that has had little.
“It’s the first step home — the first of many,” said Jordan Roth, the president of Jujamcyn Theaters, which owns and operates the St. James Theater. “This is not, ‘Broadway’s back!’ This is ‘Broadway is coming back!’,” he said, “and we know it can because of this.”
It’s Monday — stay optimistic.
Metropolitan Diary: Korvettes had everything
Dear Diary:
It was July 1967. I had recently graduated from New York University and was moving into a new apartment at 55th Street and Lexington Avenue.
I walked to E.J. Korvette on 47th Street and Fifth Avenue to buy a vacuum cleaner. Korvettes had everything you could ever need then.
I found the perfect vacuum, an orange-and-tan canister model that weighed 19 pounds. Not wanting to splurge on a cab or lug it on a bus, I decided I could just carry it the 10 or so blocks home.
At 51st Street, I had to set it down to rest a bit before continuing on. A well-dressed older man observed my situation and stopped. I thought he was going to offer to help.
“Nice try,” he said, “but it’ll take more than that to clean up this city.”
And then he walked on.
— Mary Loporcaro
