Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Encourages New Yorkers to Get New COVID-19 Vaccine as Students Return to School and Respiratory Illness Season Begin

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced the new COVID-19 vaccine for the 2024-2025 season is now available in New York State. The Governor encouraged all eligible New Yorkers - especially those who are 65 and older, are at risk for severe COVID-19, or have never received a COVID-19 vaccine - to get the vaccine as students return to school, and ahead of the respiratory illness season. The Governor and New York State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald also announced the Commissioner's standing order allowing all eligible New Yorkers to receive the new COVID-19 vaccine at any pharmacy in New York State without a prescription from their individual health care provider.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.

PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good morning, everyone. I wanted to talk about an issue that is surfacing, especially as we approach the school year, a topic that we talked about a great deal. And as we've all heard me say many times, my number one job as the governor is to keep New Yorkers safe. That's why today I'll be giving an update on our vaccination efforts against COVID-19.

Now, I want to be very clear. This is not going back to the dark, scary days of 2020, 2021, and 2022. We are far from it. And we have excellent vaccines, including an updated vaccine just approved by the federal government. Now, cases and hospitalizations are not elevated from what they had been this summer. They're actually down a little bit from recent weeks.

And we're continuing our surveillance. People ask, "How are you doing your surveillance?" It's statewide wastewater surveillance that also allows us to see whether there's any spikes in particular communities. And it indicates right now that cases are down from what we had seen in the summertime. You can see over there, they spiked up a little bit in the summer and now they're starting to trend out.

Now that is the good news. But we have a history now. The weather changes. People start going back indoors. Kids are back in school and they're all spreading a lot of germs. And we do tend to see when the weather changes, a seasonal uptick in illnesses like flu and COVID-19. Now, they spread once it gets cold outside, people spend more time, and especially around the holidays.

So the data is clear. The vaccines actually work. And it reduces infections by 57 percent in 18 to 49 year olds. And it cuts doctor visits and hospital visits down by about 50 percent. That's all good news. Now here's the choice people have, New Yorkers, I know you don't want to hear about this, but you can spend Thanksgiving quarantining, walk around the house with a mask on, not enjoying the holiday dinner, waiting for a nasal swab from a hospital, or you can be with your family.

I want to encourage all New Yorkers, now is the time to take care of yourselves and your children. Don't wait until later. Don't get sick. There have been cases around, even my office, where people got sick over the summer. And it is long in duration and is really unpleasant. So all of that is avoidable, which is extraordinary.

And the good news is, these new federal vaccines, federally approved vaccines, are available at your pharmacy right now. And the home test kits are available. The COVID test swabs are going to be available again by mail. So people should take advantage of that, that's coming from the federal government.

So, in order to make sure we're doing this properly, in a couple minutes, you'll see Dr. McDonald be signing another version of our standing order to make sure people can get a shot at their local pharmacies without a prescription. Again, we had to do that by an executive order, which we'll be seeing shortly. So, we want this to be easy, hassle free, most insurance will cover the cost of the shots.

And for those who are uninsured or your insurance won't cover this. We have shots for free at community health centers all over New York or our local health departments. And we'll make sure that that information gets out there.

So, just so you know, I went first. I got my COVID shot yesterday. I'm fine, don't feel anything.

And it's highly recommended for anyone six months or older. I know my little two year old granddaughter got one this week, my family has gotten it. So, this is a family outing. Bring everybody. And again, the beginning of the season is the best time to protect you - to get your Flu, your RSV, your COVID vaccines.

And there's no reason to make multiple trips. Just do it all in one shot. So, to give more details, I'll turn it over to our Health Commissioner, Dr. McDonald. But before that, you can see a quick video. In case you don't believe me, I did get the shot yesterday:

"Hi everyone, Kathy Hochul here reminding everyone it's time to get that COVID shot. I know a lot of us want to forget about COVID, but we all know somebody who's contracted it and not feeling good these days, so here's how we prevent it.

Just stop by your local drug store, your pharmacy, your own provider - and get this shot now.

Every year you should be thinking about getting it. It doesn't take any time at all. In fact, we're going to show you how fast it is. Let's time my visit here today.

Word of advice everybody, wear the right clothing. You've got to go up really high on the arm. All right, here we go. 3, 2, 1 - tell me when you're going to start. I can't even feel it.

Okay, that took 3 minutes and 14 seconds. Alright, quick and painless."

That's the message from your Governor. Everybody get out there and do it. Dr. McDonald, let's hear from you.

Contact the Governor's Press Office