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New York started the new year with darker news on COVID-19, as the daily death toll from the virus rose to 166 on Thursday, the highest single-day death toll since May, while the number of coronavirus cases nationwide exceeded 20 million.
Meanwhile, officials in Florida were investigating a newly discovered case of a mutant variant of the coronavirus that appears to be much more contagious – the first confirmed case on the East Coast after the variant was discovered several days ago in California and in Colorado.
Twenty-three Long Islanders were among those who died of the disease Thursday: 12 from Suffolk and 11 from Nassau, according to a press release from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s office.
During the summer, the number of people dying each day from COVID-19 statewide was generally in single digits. On December 14, the daily death toll exceeded 100 for the first time since spring – and it has been there every day since, except one.
The number of 166 deaths on Thursday was 136 on Wednesday and it was the highest number since May 12, according to the state health department.
More than 30,200 New Yorkers have died from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, including 2,401 people in Nassau and 2,311 in Suffolk.
The statewide confirmed death toll differs from the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center’s tally, which uses different calculations – it includes probable and confirmed deaths from COVID-19 – and indicates the number of deaths in New York through Friday afternoon at 38,155.
Nationwide on Friday afternoon, the death toll topped 347,000 and the number of cases stood at nearly 20.1 million, according to Johns Hopkins. This is by far the highest number of cases in the world and almost double the number of confirmed cases in the second hardest-hit country, India, even though India’s population is more than four times as many important.
The number of coronavirus hospitalizations statewide on Thursday fell to 7,886, Cuomo’s office said. That’s a drop of 49 from the previous day, but the effects of Christmas, New Years Eve and other holiday gatherings have yet to be seen, as hospitalizations often delay new infections by a few weeks. .
Nearly 1,300 of those hospitalized were in intensive care, including 776 intubated.
The photo on LI
The percentage of coronavirus tests that came back positive has fallen again in Suffolk and Nassau, although the number remains much higher than just a few weeks ago.
In Suffolk, 9.7% of tests came back positive on Thursday, for a total of 1,874 new cases. The rate was 10.5% Wednesday and 12.8% Tuesday.
In Nassau County, 1,556 people – 8% of the total number of results – recently tested positive for the virus. That’s a drop of 8.9% Wednesday and 10.5% Tuesday.
Statewide, the positivity rate was 7.52%.
Nassau County Director Laura Curran said in a statement that “While the expansion of vaccine distribution and availability is a bright light at the end of this dark tunnel, we are still in the tunnel. Please. continue to use common sense, avoiding large gatherings. can start 2021 with a clear path to recovery. “
New York City had 5,293 new cases of the coronavirus, according to the state.
Variant found in Florida
In Florida, that state’s health department reported Thursday evening that a man in his twenties with no recent travel history had the variant of the coronavirus, known as the British strain, after the UK, where it was detected for the first time and where it quickly spread to the south of England. .
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working with the Florida Department of Health to investigate the case.
The variant is a mutated and possibly more infectious strain of the novel coronavirus. About half of the 350,000 known sequences of the virus come from the UK, where authorities are pushing to reactivate previously hushed field hospitals to handle the expected crash of new patients.
In San Diego County, Calif., Officials said the variant was “widespread in the community” because none of the four men diagnosed with the strain had known interactions with each other and at least three n had not traveled outside the country.
At present, experts have said they predict that the variant will have little or no influence on the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The discovery of the variant in California on Wednesday came as state hospitals are on the brink of disaster, according to a health official there, as the pandemic has pushed deaths and disease to staggering levels and that some medical centers have struggled to provide oxygen to the seriously ill.
Infections in California have been out of control for weeks, and the state has consistently set new records for infections and deaths. The state now has the worst coronavirus diagnosis rate in the country.
California has nearly 26,000 deaths from COVID-19, ranking it third after New York and Texas, where more than 27,000 people have died.
With AP
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David Olson covers health care. He has been with Newsday since 2015 and previously covered immigration, multicultural issues and religion at The Press-Enterprise in Southern California.
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