What you should know
- New York Gov. Kathy Hochul says she feels “cautiously optimistic” about trends in COVID cases showing a slower rate of growth for the first time since the state reported its first confirmed case of the Omicron variant on 2 from December.
- Meanwhile, the CDC director said the same day that she doesn’t think the United States has reached the Omicron peak yet.
- Hochul reported 82,094 new COVID cases on Friday, representing a drop of a few hundred from a day ago and about 3,300 positives less than the single-day record of 85,476 it reported on New Years Day.
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NEW YORK – New York Governor Kathy Hochul says she is “cautiously optimistic” about trends in COVID cases showing a slower rate of growth for the first time since the state reported its first confirmed case of the disease. Omicron variant on December 2.
Meanwhile, the CDC director said the same day that she doesn’t think the United States has reached the Omicron peak yet. But that could happen sooner than expected if the numbers in New York this week are any indication of what could happen next.
Hochul reported 82,094 new cases of COVID on Friday, representing a decrease of a few hundred cases from a day ago and about 3,300 positives less than the single-day record of 85,476 that it reported on New Year’s Day.
More than one in five New York COVID tests are testing positive these days, and the city’s seven-day moving average of positive tests is currently one in three. However, the trends in daily new cases are a bit confusing, given the impact of vacation-related test gaps, the still-unknown effect of vacation travel and meetings, and overall reporting delays.
A quick look at New York City case trends shows what appears to be a decline in new cases, but the data is four days behind. That failure in the seven-day average could reflect a lower number of COVID tests during the holidays rather than the first indications of the omicron decline, or maybe not. Time will tell.
“We are not going to make any pronouncements other than that it is a better trend line than the one we have been seeing so far. Every day that we can flatten will be a good day,” Hochul said, adding that the state expected the number of cases stabilize.
At the same time, new cases are slowing due to exponential increases, sometimes doubling daily in New York City, the two lagging indicators, those that officials are most concerned about, hospitalizations and deaths, are increasing considerably.
That has happened in almost every wave of the pandemic so far. The governor reported 155 new deaths from COVID on Friday, the highest number in a single day since the launch of the mass vaccination and an increase of 35 deaths from the previous high of 130 that she revealed a day earlier.
We explain what the CDC says.
Hospitalizations stand at 11,548 statewide as of Friday, the highest total since April 29, 2020, and mark an increase of nearly 500 patients over the last day. Almost half of current admissions are in New York City.
But the totals alone may not tell the whole story.
In New Jersey, net COVID hospitalizations reached their highest level on Friday (5,621) since April 30, 2020, but the growth rate of net hospitalizations has slowed significantly since January 2. Rates also appear to be declining at some New York hospitals.
Some are seeing what appear to be the first signs of “stabilization,” as one chief physician described it, in new COVID admissions, while others grapple with record ER visits, a dichotomy that perhaps at less in part it reflects variations in vaccination rates as omicron’s dominance in the country intensifies.
Northwell Health, the state’s largest healthcare provider, serving the city, Long Island and Westchester, is seeing its 19 hospitals discharge at a rate close to admissions, indicating shorter patient stays, as new hospitalizations appear to stagnate, according to Dr. David Battinelli, the network’s chief physician and senior vice president. Battinelli says Northwell’s admissions have risen 505 week-over-week, but have started to stabilize in recent days, which he called a hopeful sign.
Approximately 9% of the approximately 1,580 hospitalized patients are in the ICU. That compares with more than half of the patients hospitalized in an ICU at the height of the crisis in the spring of 2020, Battinelli said. The vast majority of those hospitalized are not vaccinated or are not vaccinated, which means that they have not completed their series.
Many companies have been forced to cancel their itineraries due to the rebound in the pandemic due to the Omicron variant.
Of the 48,000 COVID tests conducted on its network on Monday and Tuesday this week, 36% tested positive, Battinellli said. Half of the positives involved asymptomatic people. Many of these cases can go unnoticed, which means that the actual count may never be known. But that matters far less than hospitalizations and deaths in terms of weathering this wave, authorities say.
Northwell is still performing elective surgeries, but at 75% capacity to avoid overwhelming staff, Battinelli said. Nearly two dozen other hospitals in the state have stopped elective procedures to shore up hospital capacity and avoid staff shortages, as state and municipal hospitalizations hit levels never before seen since April 2020.
Deaths are likely to rise as a default consequence of high hospitalization rates, but the milder nature of Ómicron versus delta, coupled with the power of vaccines to prevent serious illness and death, should mitigate the increases.
Public health experts have said they do not expect the peak of this latest wave of COVID until February, although they acknowledge the unpredictability of the virus.
The CDC director says there could certainly be a rapid decline rather than a slow decline in cases, given omicron’s performance in countries it hit first, such as South Africa. But she doesn’t think America is at that point yet.
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“The number of cases is increasing faster than the number of hospitalizations and deaths, although now we are beginning to see the number of hospitalizations increasing as well,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky told NBC’s “TODAY” in an interview. on Friday. “The way it has peaked in other countries, in South Africa, it has also come down rapidly, but I don’t think we’ve seen the peak yet here in the United States.”
“I will say that our hospitals right now are full of people who are not vaccinated and who are 17 times more likely to be in a hospital and 20 times more likely to die if they are not vaccinated compared to if they receive a booster,” she added. . “There is a lot we can do right now, getting vaccinated, getting a booster. We have 99% of our counties in high transmission, wear your mask in closed public settings.”
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