8-2-21 Governor Cuomo urged private businesses to mandate vaccinations for customers and employees and warned that if coronavirus cases continue to rise, he believes a vaccine mandate should be in place for private health care workers, teachers and nursing home workers.

8-3-21 State Attorney General Letitia James announced that her office's five-month investigation "has concluded that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women and in doing so violated federal and state law." "The investigation found that Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed current and former New York state employees by engaging in unwelcome and non-consensual touching ... that created a hostile work environment for women."

8-8-21 A UK study found that being fully vaccinated lowers the risk of infection from the Delta variant by 50-60%. A Canadian study that's still awaiting peer review found that after both doses of Pfizer's shot, the risk of a symptomatic Delta infection dropped by 87% and the risk of hospitalization or death from Delta dropped by 100%.

8-10-21 Governor Cuomo announces that he will resign, effective in fourteen days.

8-11-21 A recent study of Mayo Clinic patients found that, over January to July, the Moderna vaccine was 86% effective against infection and Pfizer's was 76%. Moderna's vaccine was 92% effective against hospitalization and Pfizer's was 85%. In July (when Delta’s prevalence in Minnesota had risen to over 70%) Moderna was 76% effective against infection, and Pfizer was only 42% effective. In Florida, the risk of infection in July for people fully vaccinated with Moderna was about 60% lower than for people fully vaccinated with Pfizer. Both vaccine's protection against severe disease and death is not significantly less against Delta.

8-12-21 FDA authorizes third COVID vaccine dose for immunocompromised people

8-14-21 The United States passed a new landmark in the fight against the novel coronavirus, when the death toll surpassed 620,000 people, the classic estimate for the number of deaths from the American Civil War (where the bulk of the deaths were from viruses, parasites and bacteria.)

8-18-21 Top Biden administration health officials concluded that most Americans will soon need coronavirus booster shots after reviewing a raft of new data from the Centers for Disease Control that showed a worrying drop in vaccine efficacy over time. One study, using New York state data, found that all three vaccines' effectiveness against infection dropped from 92% in early May to 80% at the end of July, but the effectiveness against hospitalization remained relatively stable.

8-18-21 In six state (California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Oregon, Utah, Vermont), breakthrough infections accounted for 18 percent to 28 percent of recorded cases in recent weeks. Immunized adults greatly outnumber unvaccinated adults in most of these states, so the proportional representation of the vaccinated among cases, hospitalizations and deaths would also be expected to rise.

8-19-21 In Los Angeles, breakthrough infections are now 30% of all new covid cases amid delta surge. The percentages of vaccinated people who test positive, and are hospitalized or die from Covid remain low — all less than 1%. Of the nearly 5.15 million fully-vaccinated county residents as of Tuesday, 27,331 have tested positive. That’s a rate of 0.53%. Only 742 were hospitalized, for a rate of 0.014%. Only 68 have died, which makes for a rate of 0.0013%.

8-19-21 More than one million Americans received a dose of Covid-19 vaccine on Thursday, a benchmark the nation has not met in nearly seven weeks as the U.S. recorded more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths in a single day.

8-24-21 U.S. FDA grants full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine

8-28-21 With 113 COVID-19 cases, Albany county recorded it's worst daily caseload since February 25.

8-31-21 However, following Pfizer's full approval, the U.S. saw a 17% increase in the number of Americans getting vaccinated with their first dose.