What you should know
- COVID infection rates per 100,000 New Yorkers increased more than 7-fold in the past month, while the risk of hospitalization increased 4-fold. The total numbers are minimal compared to the risk for the unvaccinated.
- Now, however, core viral rates are experiencing slower growth rates, although they remain high. The number of cases is declining even as the lagging indicators, hospitalizations and deaths, continue to rise.
- Total hospitalizations are 12,540, the highest number since April 27, 2020, while the 160 new deaths are the highest number in a single day since the implementation of mass vaccination. But the rate of increase is slowing.
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New York’s central viral rates continue to show increasing signs of improvement, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Tuesday, a day after the U.S. posted another new single-day case record amid the surge in coronavirus-related cases. Omicron variant.
The positivity rate has dropped in recent days, with fewer than one in five New York COVID tests coming back positive for the first time in a month. The state’s seven-day average number of cases per 100,000 residents is also leveling off.
“Yes, it’s actually going down,” the Democratic governor said hopefully from her Manhattan office. “It looks like we might be getting past that peak. We’re not quite there yet, but I want to say this is a ray of hope for me.”
COVID hospitalizations soared statewide to 12,540, the highest total since April 27, 2020, and Tuesday’s new death toll of 160 is the highest single-day number since mass vaccination began. , but the rate of increase is slowing appreciably.
Meanwhile, a surprising number of people hospitalized with COVID weren’t admitted for it in the first place, state data shows. The diagnosis came along the way as part of the routine admission tests. Is it good or bad news?
It might depend on who you ask. The State notes that it is an indication of the milder symptoms related to the Omicron variant, which may become more severe for people with one or more underlying conditions. That’s the group getting the sickest amid this latest wave, according to anecdotal evidence from at least one leading Manhattan ER doctor.
The data also suggests that many more cases, such as hospitalized patients who were not admitted for the virus, may go undetected, meaning the true extent of Omicron’s spread may never be known.
It comes as newly released statewide data highlights in stark reality the viral force that crippled the workforce of every key industry last month and continues to assert its power around the world, reasons why Pfizer and Moderna are fighting to make a specific Ómicron vaccine that, according to experts, is already too late.
To be sure, viral rates continue to rise across all key indicators, but the rate of growth appears to be slowing down, sometimes dramatically, over the past week. Time will tell if this is a promising trend or just a flicker in this latest wave.
Dr. Anthony Fauci told our sister network News 4 on Friday that he thought Omicron’s peak could be a matter of weeks, and CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters it was possible (although not certain) that cases could decline as fast as they rose.
Nationally, the prevalence of Omicron is believed to be as high as 97%, although the CDC has not yet updated its data from the last week.
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