Two nurses put a ventilator on a patient in a COVID-19 unit at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, Calif. Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021. California health authorities reported Thursday a record two-day total of 1,042 coronavirus deaths as many hospitals strain under unprecedented caseloads. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Hospitalizations in New York spiked 12 percent in a single day on Dec. 27 as new coronavirus infections besieged the state.
Pushing up the state’s case numbers is the increase in recent hospitalizations in New York City. Could this be a repeat of early to mid-2020, when the Big Apple became the epicenter of the new coronavirus outbreak at the start of the pandemic?
From March to May 2020, approximately 203,000 laboratory-confirmed covid-19 cases and 18,600 deaths were reported to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Of the hospitalized patients, 30 percent with lab-confirmed covid died.
Then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency and deployed National Guard troops to combat the spread of coronavirus in New Rochelle, Westchester County, two miles north of the New York City boundary.
Here are three things to know about the latest New York State hospitalizations.
More than 40,000 people tested positive for the virus on Dec. 27, according to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Some 6,173 people are hospitalized in the state, up 647 from a day earlier. More than 1,100 people were newly admitted, NBC News reported. This number was offset slightly by discharges and deaths.
Discover How Affordable Peace of Mind Can Be:
Get Your Life Insurance Quote Today!
While the increase in numbers is alarming, hospitalizations are still one-third lower now than when they peaked during a surge in January 2021.
Nearly 20 percent of all covid tests in the state came back positive on Dec. 27, and in just five days, about 1 percent of all state residents tested positive for the virus.
Hochul tweeted an update on the state’s covid data, “#COVID Update: -210,996 Test Results Reported -40,780 Positives -19.33% Positive -6,173 Hospitalizations (+647) -77 new deaths reported by healthcare facilities through HERDS”.
In New York City, cases of the omicron variant have increased.
Almost 28,000 people who tested positive on Dec. 27 were in New York City, making for 128,000 cases in five days.
New York City’s hospitalization rate spiked again on Dec. 28 by nearly 30 percent — with more than 60 percent of new patients testing positive for covid-19, according to official figures, The New York Post reported.
NYC Councilmember and Manhattan Borough President-elect Mark D. Levine tweeted, “A stunning 27,774 newly reported cases in NYC today. Despite record high testing, positivity rate continues to increase, now at 19.6%.”
He added, “Hospitalizations in NYC, while still below previous peaks, are rising very fast. Today at 2,777, with 617 new admissions in past day.”
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 74: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin returns for a new season of the GHOGH podcast to discuss Bitcoin, bubbles, and Biden. He talks about the risk factors for Bitcoin as an investment asset including origin risk, speculative market structure, regulatory, and environment. Are broader financial markets in a massive speculative bubble?
New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio called the new hospitalization rate — announced a day after it more than doubled in two weeks amid the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant — “very high.”
The city also reported 20,200 new covid-19 cases, which de Blasio called “just a staggering number but one that hopefully will be very very brief.”
Photo: Two nurses put a ventilator on a patient in a covid-19 unit at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, Calif. , Jan. 7, 2021. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
