What you should know
- New York State broke its record for COVID cases in a single day on Wednesday with a total of 67,000 new positives, an increase of 64% in the last day. Nearly 20% of the 362,000 some tests statewide were positive
- Virus hospitalizations are at mid-February levels and on the rise, with New York reporting 6,700 patients as of Wednesday, a 10% increase in the last day and nearly triple-digit daily deaths for the first time in months.
- While Ómicron is expected to last shorter than the delta, Governor Kathy Hochul says she expects a spike in all core COVID metrics next month and says the state is prepared to handle it.
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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul warned that fewer COVID-19 infections reported across the state earlier in the week were likely due to reduced testing of holiday weekends and warned that an increase could appear to mid-week as more results are achieved.
The state reported a new single-day high of 67,000 cases Wednesday, a 64% increase from last day alone, Gov. Hochul said. The unprecedented total came amid a recent high in the number of daily tests, 362,000, for a positivity rate of 18.5%.
The governor described those high test numbers as a “very positive result” in the sense that it shows that the state can deploy sufficient resources to meet the demand for tests, which has exploded amid this wave of infections of the Omicron variant. .
At the same time, Governor Hochul reported 97 new deaths from COVID-19 in New York, the first time in many months that daily deaths have approached 100. It surpasses the most recent record reported in at least 20 lives and “does not it’s the direction we want to go, “said Hochul.
Hospitalizations are also increasing exponentially, to a total of 6,700 statewide as of Wednesday, Hochul said. That’s a 10% increase from Tuesday’s admissions and dangerously close to the 2021 highs around 8,700 in January.
For now, most hospitals can handle the increases, given Ómicron’s tendency to cause milder infections among those who are fully vaccinated. Roughly two dozen hospitals across the state have stopped elective surgeries to maintain at least 10% of bed capacity, but that number has dropped from 32 in recent weeks and is stable.
“We are basically bracing for a January surge. We know it will come. And we are naive in thinking it won’t,” Hochul said Wednesday. “We believe there will be an increase in cases that will continue, not only in our positive rates but also in our hospitalizations.”
The data is almost difficult to understand: Nearly 20% of all COVID tests in the state tested positive on Wednesday, and in the past seven days alone, about 1.5% of all New York residents tested positive.
As Hochul said about omicron a day ago, “this is a different variant” in terms of its unprecedented infectivity and vaccine resistance.
Groundbreaking infections have been particularly troublesome with this strain, crippling everything from Broadway businesses to transit operations, airlines and more, as industries compete to adopt new CDC isolation guidelines that explain so much the increased transmissibility of omicron as milder cases for those vaccinated.
According to the latest New York State report, the vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 infection was 75%, meaning that fully vaccinated New Yorkers were approximately 75% less likely to become infected than unvaccinated New Yorkers. . In May, the rate was 92%. Dropped to 80% during delta variant rise and again in mid-omicron.
Vaccine effectiveness against COVID hospitalization dropped to a much lower degree under Omicron, an effectiveness rate of 94.6%, state data shows. That’s a higher rate than that seen in New York in mid-July. in the middle of the delta peak (93.7%) and on par with the efficacy rates of early May against COVID hospitalization for those who are fully vaccinated.
The state does not separate fully vaccinated New Yorkers from New Yorkers who have received the booster doses in this data set, so the data may be slightly skewed.
Meanwhile, transmission and positivity rates are increasing especially in New York City, accounting for a significant portion of all new COVID cases nationwide.
Ómicron has also caused unprecedented daily infections in the US, setting a record seven-day case average on Tuesday, according to data from NBC News.
The average of 262,034 daily cases eclipsed the previous record set on January 11 of 252,776 new cases per day. It fell somewhat, according to the CDC, to about 240,400 cases a day on Wednesday, still 60% more than the previous week.
“The rapid increase in cases that we are seeing across the country is largely a reflection of the exceptionally transmissible Omicron variant,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a briefing at the White House on Wednesday. . “In a few weeks, Ómicron has risen rapidly across the country and we expect it to continue circulating in the coming weeks. While our cases have increased substantially since last week, hospitalizations and deaths remain comparatively low.”
The variant, whose first local case was reported on Dec. 2, accounted for 73.3% of the gene-sequenced New York COVID-19 positive samples uploaded to GISAID, the world’s largest COVID-19 sequence repository, during the last two weeks. That’s up from 66% a day ago, 11.1% in the two-week period ending Dec. 18 and 2.2% in the two-week period prior, state data shows.
CDC data for the past two weeks says that Ómicron could account for 70% to 97% of current infections in the New York area during the week ending December 25. Nationally, the prevalence is estimated to be as high as 74%, the agency says.
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.
“Let’s make a New Years resolution to beat this pandemic in 2022,” Hochul said in a statement. “Let’s start by celebrating the New Year safely this weekend. Before visiting friends and family, get tested and make sure you are vaccinated and boosted, if you meet the requirement. Remember to wear a mask when meeting other people. If we all do the right thing, we can make 2022 a very different year from the difficulties we have had to endure so far. “
Still, the governor recognizes the devastating cost of these last two years and thanked health workers in the region of North Country for your tireless dedication.
“A burnout is setting in, they never dreamed that not one, but two winters of this would go by with no end in sight because this variant is wildly unpredictable,” the Democrat said. “Everyone in this entire healthcare ecosystem owes a tremendous debt of gratitude.”
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