For the second consecutive day, New York State saw its highest death toll to COVID-19 since the beginning of vaccinations and while things still aren’t as dire as during the pandemic’s peak, cases continue to go up.
The state recorded 82,094 new cases of coronavirus and 155 new deaths due to COVID.
New York City alone is responsible for 32,799 cases and 586 new hospitalizations.
Cases are about six times as high among the unvaccinated as they are among those who’ve gotten the shot.
However, state data shows that 43 percent of the people being hospitalized with COVID were not specifically hospitalized for COVID. These patients were hospitalized for another reason and then tested positive.
‘My administration is hard at work making testing, vaccines, boosters and masks more widely available in to fight this winter surge,’ Governor Kathy Hochul said in a statement.
New York state recorded 82,094 new cases of coronavirus and 155 new deaths due to COVID Friday
Cases continue to rise significantly higher among those who have not taken the COVID-19 vaccine
The Omicron variant of COVID-19 is now almost entirely responsible for the state’s case totals
Governor Kathy Hochul (pictured)
People waited in line in the wake of the season’s first snowstorm in Midtown Manhattan to get tested for the virus Friday
‘While we are prepared to deal with whatever comes our way using the tools we know are effective, it will take a concerted effort on the part of every New Yorker to beat this pandemic and protect our loved ones,’ she added. ‘Get your vaccine if you haven’t yet and the booster if you have, mask up, exercise caution while in indoor public spaces and we’ll make it through this – together.’
The state’s positivity rate for tests was at 21.7 percent, down slightly from Thursday’s 22.3 percent.
Hospitalizations, ICU admissions and intubations continue to rise, while the total deaths in the state due to COVID are now at 49,185.
Hospital officials in the Big Apple have said that things are nowhere near as bad as they were at the dawn of the pandemic.
‘We’re not even halfway to what we were in April 2020,’ Dr. David Battinelli, the physician-in-chief for Northwell Health, New York state’s largest hospital system, told NBC4.
Experts add that patients aren’t as sick as they were getting earlier during the first surge.
For example, while 704 patients are currently in ICU beds – the highest total since February 2021 – that’s still five-fold less than where they were at in April of 2020.
The WHO said Thursday that a record 9.5 million COVID-19 cases were tallied over the last week as the omicron variant of the coronavirus swept the planet, a 71 percent increase from the previous 7-day period that the U.N. health agency likened to a ‘tsunami.’
That said, the number of weekly recorded deaths declined.
