COVID test positivity rates decline, but Suffolk outbreak remains severe

For the first time in 12 weeks, COVID-19 test positivity rates declined this week in Suffolk County.

The seven-day average positivity rate, which peaked at 10.7% in the week ending Jan.8, fell to 8.9% this week (ending Jan.15).

The test positivity rate has been below 10% since January 8 in Suffolk. “After months of drastic increases it looks like we are finally moving in a positive direction,” said Steve Bellone, Suffolk County Director.

The county executive urged residents to “continue to limit gatherings, practice social distancing and wear masks.”

Officials are hoping the peak of the holiday season begins to wear off.

The county is focused on “getting the vaccine in as many arms as possible, as fast as possible,” Bellone said.

“Suffolk County is ready to go. We have an action plan and the infrastructure in place to vaccinate at least 6,500 people per day – we just need the vaccines, ”he said.

This week, the pool of eligible recipients was significantly expanded by the CDC to include first responders, education workers, front-facing grocery store workers, and people over 65 – which means that over 7 million New Yorkers can be vaccinated.

But the state’s vaccine dose allocation has not increased. Although Health and Human Services Agency Alex Azar this week announced the agency would release the federal vaccine stock, it turned out that there is no federal vaccine stock for the new doses. . The federal agency began shipping stocks of doses in December, a spokesperson for the agency acknowledged.

Supplies of the two approved vaccines are expected to remain scarce for several months, officials said.

President-elect Joe Biden has said he will invoke the Defense Production Act, if necessary, to increase vaccine supply. But Biden said “things are going to get worse before they get better.”

The widening of eligibility combined with the shortage of supplies left thousands of anxious residents scrambling to book appointments, overwhelming a crumbling New York State website.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said appointments – made based on expected available vaccine doses – quickly booked and people should now expect to have to wait around 14 weeks to get vaccinated.

Cuomo and Bellone both urged residents to be patient.

There were 12,173 new cases of COVID-19 reported in Suffolk County this week (January 9-15). County health officials have reported 682 new hospital admissions for COVID-19 and 638 hospital discharges. On average, 823 people have been hospitalized for COVID-19 this week. There were 113 new deaths, bringing the county’s total number of deaths in the pandemic to 2,604 people.

As the test positivity rate declined in Suffolk, hospitalizations and deaths – which lag behind infections – continued to rise across the county.

In Riverhead, there were 186 new confirmed cases of the virus this week, up from 257 new cases the week before.

Riverhead Central School District reported 31 new cases this week among students and staff. New cases were reported in each of the district school buildings and in the transportation department.

Peconic Bay Medical Center had 40 patients hospitalized with COVID on Friday, the hospital’s deputy general manager Amy Loeb said.

Test positivity rates in the two micro-cluster concentration areas of Suffolk fell this week. The average test positivity rate in the Riverhead area fell to 10.5% this week, from 12.2% the week before. In the Hampton Bays area, the average test positivity rate fell to 12.4% this week from 13.8% last week.

Public health officials are monitoring the spread of the UK variant of the coronavirus, which they say is 50% more contagious. The New York State Department of Health has so far confirmed 17 cases with the new strain, including two in Nassau County.

The CDC said this week that the UK variant is expected to become the predominant strain of the virus in the United States in March.

Health officials say there is no evidence so far that the UK variant causes more serious illness and they believe the two approved vaccines will be effective against the new strain.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Cuomo said this week. He described the situation as a “running race” between vaccinating the population and the spread of new cases of COVID, amplified by the new strain of the virus currently circulating in the United States.

New York’s outbreak is one of the most serious in the United States

New York is currently experiencing one of the most serious epidemics in the country.

According to CDC data, New York City has 88 cases of COVID per 100,000 population, an outbreak more severe than in all but five states: South Carolina (88 / 100k), Arkansas (89 / 100k), Oklahoma (95 / 100k ), California (105 / 100k) and Arizona (122 / 100k). The national average is 69 cases of COVID per 100,000 population.

Suffolk County currently has 119 cases per 100,000 population and Nassau County 111 cases per 100,000 population.

When there are more than 25 cases per 100,000 people, the risk of infection is considered critical. When there are more than 75 cases per 100,000, the risk of infection is considered extreme, according to the Harvard Global Health Institute.

The CDC reports 390,938 deaths from COVID-19 in the United States as of January 16, with a seven-day moving average of 3,326 deaths per day, the highest since the start of the pandemic.

According to CDC data, the virus has killed 1.2% of the American population since the start of the epidemic. The death toll in the United States is expected to exceed 566,000 by May 1, according to modeling by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. The 1918 influenza pandemic killed an estimated 675,000 Americans.

COVID-19 has so far claimed more than 2 million lives worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Nearly another million people are projected to die from the disease worldwide by May 1, according to IHME projects.