What you should know
- President Joe Biden will announce Thursday that new federal booster teams will be sent to hospitals in New York and New Jersey.
- It would be part of an effort to shore up the country’s medical system as COVID hospitalizations remain near record highs.
- But in a sign that the virus load is beginning to decline, New Jersey reported its first daily decline in net COVID hospitalizations in nearly a month.
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NEW YORK — President Joe Biden will announce Thursday that new federal surge teams will be sent to hospitals in New York and New Jersey as part of an effort to shore up the nation’s medical system as COVID hospitalizations remain near highs. historical.
But in a sign that the virus load is beginning to decline, New Jersey reported its first daily decline in net COVID hospitalizations in nearly a month.
A White House official told NBC News that the president will announce that military medical teams will be sent to six hospitals in six states, including Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn and University Hospital in Newark.
The official said the kits will help with triage and lessening the workload in emergency rooms, among other aids.
There is cautious optimism in New York that the worst of Omicron’s wave may be in the past, with new cases and positivity rates declining and the growth rate of hospitalizations slowing.
Still, in both New York and New Jersey, COVID hospitalizations are still at levels last seen in the early, dark days of the pandemic in April and May 2020.
As of Wednesday, more than 18,000 people were in the hospital with COVID in the two states.
But on Thursday, New Jersey reported that a net total of 5,933 people were in a hospital with COVID in the state the day before. That was nearly 3% less than the day before and marked the first time since Dec. 16 that net hospitalizations were down.
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