COVID hospitalizations in NY exceed 10,000 for the first time in 20 months – Telemundo New York (47)

What you should know

• New York Governor Kathy Hochul continues to push for vaccination and testing as the state battles its worst wave of COVID-19 in a year. COVID hospitalizations statewide surpassed 10,000 on Tuesday.
• The Omicron variant, whose first case in New York was reported on December 2, represents 93.8% of the sequenced samples uploaded to GISAID during the last two weeks, although the CDC estimates that its share could reach 99.1%.
• The risk of serious infections more than quintupled in December, while the risk of extraordinary hospitalizations nearly doubled. Unvaccinated New Yorkers are still infected and hospitalized at more than 6 and 14 times the rate, respectively, of those vaccinated.

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COVID-19 hospitalizations in New York surpassed the 10,000 mark on Tuesday, leading to the highest levels since early May 2020. This is because new estimates released by the CDC estimate that the regional prevalence of omicron it is as high as 99%.

On Tuesday, the governor reported 10,411 hospitalizations, 848 more than the previous day.

The estimated proportion of the variant of current COVID-19 cases in the US is at least 92% or more, according to the federal health agency. Both reflect strong increases from last week, especially domestically, and come as New York and the United States struggle almost daily with record numbers of cases along with rising hospitalizations from the virus.

The data is almost difficult to understand. More than one in five New York tests are testing positive these days, and that number is expected to rise sharply on Wednesday after Gov. Kathy Hochul said the holiday weekend reporting delays were likely to rise. trailing “misleading” daily case counts in the range of 51,000 to 53,000 for the past two days after approaching a record high of 90,000 on the first day of the new year.

However, there is nothing misleading about the skyrocketing number of hospitalizations across the state. Before surpassing 10,000 hospitalizations Tuesday, more than 9,500 COVID patients were hospitalized in New York as of Monday, topping the January 2021 peak by nearly 300 admissions.

Monday’s total of 9,563 hospitalizations was the highest since May 4, 2020, when the state had 9,600 COVID patients in hospitals. And it’s expected to rise even further, with this latest viral wave, as a Manhattan emergency room doctor put it this week, “making people sick in a different way” than previous waves.

More than half of all hospitalized COVID-19 patients statewide are in New York City, which has the second highest rate of complete vaccination for adults (84.1%) of the state’s 10 regions, just behind Long Island (86.5%). However, both regions, once again affected by their density compared to others, are at the top of the COVID impact charts.

Mount Sinai South Nassau he told News 4 on Tuesday he was rescheduling most elective surgeries that require overnight inpatient states in an attempt to preserve hospital capacity as COVID-19 cases rise unabated. It is one of nearly two dozen hospitals in the state that have taken such action to keep bed capacity above 10% in accordance with the state’s winter surge plan.

Mount Sinai says the number of COVID-positive hospitalized patients reached 100 on Tuesday morning, accounting for about a third of all available beds at the South Nassau facility. And it’s not just about the patients.

Nearly 200 of its employees are ill, either for quarantine or surveillance reasons, due to the improved COVID-19 protocol. Many may be back within the new five-day isolation window, but given the way Omicron has spread across the state in recent weeks, many more may be leaving when they return.

The number of hospitals on hiatus peaked in late November, around 32, and has since dropped to around 22 as of Tuesday, as the state takes advantage of updated federal guidelines on quarantine and deploys various resources and plans to mitigate the wide-ranging impacts of the Omicron surge.

Rates among children have skyrocketed in New York in recent weeks, especially in the city, sparking new impulses for parents to vaccinate their youngest children and get boosters for older ones, now that the FDA has approved a third Pfizer dosage for children 12-15 years. It is not clear when children ages 5 to 11 can receive this dose.

Mount Sinai said in a statement that it is monitoring the situation carefully and “we are hopeful that the recent increase in COVID-19 due to the Omicron variant will peak in the coming weeks and then begin to decrease the number of new cases of COVID that we are seeing in our emergency department “and in other areas of the hospital.

The state is also carefully monitoring the data. Hochul has indicated that this will be a critical week to assess whether “broader steps” are needed to preserve the hospital’s capacity amid a viral surge that does not expect to peak until next month.

Long Island has the highest positivity rate of New York’s 10 regions as of Tuesday’s state update, with more than a quarter of all tests conducted in that region testing positive. More than one in five is coming back positive in the city. Of the five boroughs, The Bronx has the highest positivity rate, about 28%.

Groundbreaking COVID-19 cases account for a growing proportion of positives, although state data shows that the unvaccinated are still at least six times more likely to be infected. They are 14 times more likely to be hospitalized with the virus, the latest statistics show.

Ultimately, officials say the vaccines will quell the increases in hospitalizations and deaths associated with the Omicron wave, and those metrics are of much greater concern to them than infections alone. That is why they urge calm at this time, and promote COVID vaccines and boosters for those who must receive them.

Hochul tried once again to bring that point home in a statement Tuesday, saying: “The best way to protect ourselves and our children from being hospitalized with COVID is with the vaccine and booster. As we continue to fight the winter surge. , use these tools: Get your second dose and booster when you can, get your kids vaccinated, remember to wear a mask, and stay home if you’re not feeling well. If we don’t, many more New Yorkers will continue to get sick. “

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