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Paramedics transport a woman with symptoms of COVID-19 to a hospital in Yonkers, New York, December 17, 2020.
Photographer: John Moore / Getty Images
Photographer: John Moore / Getty Images
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New York State has passed 1 million cases of Covid-19, after a bleak year in which more than 30,000 of its residents died from the virus.
More than a third of the state’s total cases were reported in December, as cold weather pushed people indoors, the holidays increased social gatherings and residents tired of the restrictions. On the first day of 2021, the United States exceeded 20 million cases of Covid-19 – twice as many as the second country, India.
Governor Andrew Cuomo has reported 15,074 new infections, below New York’s pandemic record of 16,802 cases reached two days ago. Another 128 people in the state have died from causes related to Covid-19, Cuomo said on Saturday. The statewide positive test rate declined slightly to 7.45%.
New York’s first case was reported on March 1 in New York City, served by three major airports that handle more than 100 million passengers a year. The Big Apple quickly became the epicenter of the outbreak in the United States, accumulating more than 80,000 cases in the first month, or about 40% of the American total at that time. Governor Andrew Cuomo later slammed President Donald Trump’s administration for allowing 3 million travelers from Europe to enter the United States between December and March before suspending most arrivals.
To slow the spread, Cuomo has closed schools and businesses, restricted gatherings, ordered residents to stay home, and enacted masks and social distancing rules. By May, the state had recovered to the point where Cuomo began to reopen in stages and regions. New York City, which had more than half of the state’s cases, kicked off the process in June. Daily cases and total hospitalizations have fallen below 500, while daily deaths have fallen below five.
The virus, meanwhile, has spread across the country and several states have overtaken New York in daily cases, deaths and hospitalizations in the absence of a national strategy to control the outbreak. California had more than 2.2 million cases and 21,000 hospitalized for Covid-19 as of January 1.
Texas and Florida have also passed 1 million, and Illinois is on track to reach that milestone in the next week. New York State now accounts for just 5% of the country’s cases.
On December 31, Cuomo reported a record 16,802 positive test results and 136 deaths. The state had 7,935 hospitalized, twice as many as a month earlier.
Cuomo, a second-term Democrat who wrote a book about his leadership during the pandemic, said on Dec. 31 that it might take the state of more than 19 million people a year to administer vaccines to a critical mass of its population. As of December 22, New York had administered approximately 203,000 of the 630,000 doses of vaccine received. His administration is piloting ways to reopen businesses that would rely heavily on testing and tracing.
(Updates with Saturday’s numbers in the third paragraph.)
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