Good morning, everyone. Well, I am very excited that tomorrow our New York City public schools, our middle schools will be reopening. And once we reopen, we are going the distance and we're looking forward to September when all our kids are going to be back. This is really an important moment, bringing back our middle school kids, getting them in the classroom, giving them an opportunity to learn from talented, committed, passionate educators. People who really care about what they're doing. School staff that cares for them, looks out for them, looks out for their academic needs, looks out for their emotional needs as well. This is why it's so important to have kids back. So middle school kids come back tomorrow. And that's going to be great. And it's a reminder of why it is right to have kids in school. This is a discussion happening all over the country. Let me be as clear as I could be, kids need to be back in school as quickly as possible. And it is so good for them, for their health and wellbeing for families. Hey, remember the spring? Remember all of the dislocation, all the pain caused by school not being there? Remember how many families struggled, trying to make it work? Remember our educators trying somehow to put together a remote system, learning, distance learning. And again, God bless our educators and our school staff and everyone at the Department of Education, they did it in the spring. They came up with something that had never been done before. But no one thinks that compares to in-person learning. So, we're moving forward, bringing our middle school kids back tomorrow. And then we want to go farther and we want to get ready for a really, really great September when everyone's back.
And the reason this has worked is because we set the highest standards in this nation. A lot of cities didn't even dare to reopen their schools. We said, we're going to do it. It's the New York way. We're going to do great things. We're going to do what other people don't dare to do, but we're going to do it by setting the highest standards. So, we took the very best ideas from around the world, the highest health and safety standards, we created a single gold standard. And what's amazing is the New York City example is now being lauded all over the country as the way to open schools. In fact, so much so that the Centers for Disease Control, when they put out their school guidelines, they borrowed heavily from the New York City approach. And what we did here in New York City, what we proved here in New York City became the foundation for the national standards.
Let's go over those CDC guidelines to give you a sense of how they connect. Number one, here are the key strategies the CDC says all school systems in America should be doing. Number one, universal and correct use of masks, universal use of masks, kids and adults alike. Check, we did that. Number two, physical distancing in all elements of the school. We did that. Number three, hand washing and respiratory etiquette. We did that, hand sanitizer everywhere. We did that from the very beginning. We keep doing that. Number four, clean and well-ventilated spaces, constant cleanings, careful attention to ventilation. We did that. And number five, focus on contact tracing, when necessary using quarantining. We'd done that from the beginning with the biggest Test and Trace Corps in America. That's been doing an amazing job. And with our situation room and thanks to everyone in the situation room for the incredible work you've done, making sure that there is an issue in a school, it's addressed right away. What we did became the gold standard for the entire United States of America. And we're very proud. I'm proud of all the people who did that work. Now, we got to keep going. And it means continuing to do testing at the highest level anywhere, weekly testing, all schools. Obviously, getting more and more folks in the schools vaccinated over time. But we have proven it works because New York City public schools are the safest places to be in New York City right now. And the numbers keep proving it.
Now, today we hit an important milestone and this commitment to testing, something a lot of other school systems didn't do. We said we would do testing constantly. Today, in our public schools, we'll get to the 500,000th test of a student or staff member. 500,000, half a million tests have been given in our New York City public schools since the beginning of the school year. That commitment to testing has been one of the reasons the schools have been so safe. And we believe in it and we know it makes a huge difference. I want to thank everyone who's been involved in the testing in the schools. I want to thank everyone who's helped us get it done. We worked closely with our union partners. We've educated and reached out to parents and we've gotten a great response. And so, testing is one of the reasons that gold standard works. And we're going to keep building on that. So, school coming back tomorrow, another step forward in this recovery. And remember, a recovery of New York City requires our public schools to come back strong. A recovery for all of us means our public schools are there for our kids in every community. That's why I am adamant our public schools need to be fully opened in September.
Okay. Let me give you an update obviously, on vaccines. We talk about it every day. This is the crucial piece of the equation. We still lack supply. It's the constant story, but I do believe things are starting to get better. And I'm really, really hopeful about what we're hearing about the Johnson and Johnson supply, which could make a huge difference for us even as early as the month of March. But let me give you an update on the numbers, as of today vaccinations given in New York City from day one, 1,578,362 doses. And again, we're ready to take that up to a much higher level quickly, so long as we get that supply. Now, when it comes to vaccination, we're focused on equity. We're focused on making sure that people who have been in the neighborhoods that suffered the most from COVID, get access to the vaccination, get the support they need the information they need, the answers they need, the outreach they need. 75 percent of our City-run vaccination sites are in the priority neighborhoods. The ones that bore the brunt of COVID, the ones where we saw the most death and devastation. That's where we're focusing. And we're seeing really good results. More and more people choosing to get vaccinated because the sites are right there in the community being run by people from the community, which gives people faith. It gives them trust in the process. We really focused on public housing and in NYCHA, we've had already, 19 vaccination sites. I was out at Red Hook Houses in Brooklyn on Sunday, great operation there. I saw really, really happy people. People were happy to be helping their neighbors, who were in that vaccination site, running it. And folks from Red Hook Houses, residents who came right there in their own community, got vaccinated, believed in it. Now they're going to tell their neighbors, their family, their friends, how important it is to get vaccinated. This is how we build up momentum. And all of the folks who have been vaccinated, we're going to be bringing them back for their second doses right there in the community, at those same sites. So, this is something I'm really excited about. It's making a big difference. We're adding more sites later this week, seven more sites in public housing later this week. And we're going to continue expanding deeper and deeper into New York City public housing, reaching people who need help the most.
All right, everyone, let's go over today's indicators. Number one, daily number – excuse me, daily number of people admitted to New York City hospitals for suspected COVID-19. Today's report, 275 patients with a confirmed positivity level of 64.83 percent. And the hospitalization rate, 4.10 per 100,000. Number two, new reported cases on a seven-day average – today's report, 3,241. Number three, percentage of people testing positive citywide for COVID-19 – today's report, on a seven-day rolling average, 7.15 percent.
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