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Siena College President Chris Gibson is calling on New York state to revise its rules for in-person graduation ceremonies. The private college in Loudonville plans to hold commencement at the Times Union Center in Albany May 30th with the arena’s capacity capped at 10 percent. But if it was a sporting event, the downtown venue would be allowed to fill 25 percent of its seats. WAMC s Jim Levulis spoke with Gibson, a former Capital Region Republican Congressman, about the college’s plans.
Gibson: We plan in-person commencement. In fact, we re going to have in-person weekend of festivities. And that includes Sunday, May 30 commencement. At the moment, given where the guidelines are for capacity limits in The Times Union Center, what that means for Siena is two different ceremonies. So you know, we got about 800 graduates. And we ll have to do a ceremony for 400, along with a couple guests for each of our graduates and faculty and staff that are supporting. And then we ll cl
ALBANY, N.Y. â Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy and Albany County Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Elizabeth Whalen once again expressed their concerns regarding the number of people still yet to become vaccinated against COVID-19.
While there s a robust supply of vaccine, the demands in certain segments of the population have alarmingly tailed off. The two discussed the need to shift strategies in order to reach more people with the vaccine.
âWe continue to move closer to herd immunity, but weâre not seeing that progress across the board for all county zip codes. There are some areas with much higher rates: The Slingerlands area has a first dose vaccination rate of nearly 69%, and the Albany and Loudonville areas are at over 66%. However, zip codes with a majority of minority populations and more rural communities have much lower vaccination rates, which is something we need to address,â McCoy stated.
ALBANY, N.Y. â Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy and Albany County Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Elizabeth Whalen both addressed the need to expand encouragement efforts to vaccinate people, so that the Capital Region can reach herd immunity and return to a sense of normalcy.
The two noted how vaccinations are starting to plateau and why more outreach is necessary in pushing people in the right direction. To that end, McCoy announced a video challenge on Instagram, imploring people to share their stories on why they became vaccinated against COVID-19 and how vital it is to resuming regular life.
âDespite making more than 1,200 first doses of the Pfizer vaccine available for our Times Union Center POD [Thursday], unfortunately, we were only able to get 319 residents to fill the appointments, including 56 walk-ins. Itâs clear weâre hitting a wall, which is why weâre shifting our resources to more community based pop-up clinics, and weâre also
Albany County taking walk-ins at Thursday vaccination clinic
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Albany County Health Commissioner Dr. Elizabeth Whalen, center, is seen at the second dose COVID-19 vaccine clinic held at the Times Union Center on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021 in Albany, N.Y. Albany County has a walk-in clinic at the Times Union Center Thursday, April 22, 2021. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)Lori Van Buren/Albany Times Union
ALBANY The Albany County Department of Health will be accepting walk-ins to a COVID-19 vaccination clinic at the Times Union Center on Thursday, officials announced Wednesday.
The first-dose clinic is scheduled to run from 2 to 7 p.m. at the arena on Albany’s South Pearl Street. Walk-ins will be accepted from 2 to 6 p.m., county spokeswoman Mary Rozak said.
Lessons learned during our year with COVID-19
News staff
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We’ve just been through a year-plus in dealing with a global pandemic. Many of our actions and reactions were laudable: The toughness of our frontline workers, our own adaptability and community-minded actions, and countless, personal brave and selfless acts. But we stumbled as well, and in some instances and with some strategies we wished we had a do-over.
We’ve asked several people in the Capital Region to look back over the past year, and to also look forward. If, heaven help us, another pandemic takes hold in the near future, with what we know now, how might we react differently. What are some of the lessons we have learned?