The upward trend in new COVID-19 diagnoses continues in New York, according to data released yesterday by the state health department.
New York State’s positivity rate — the ratio of positive test results to the total tests reported — climbed to 2.4% Saturday, up from 2.2% Friday. There were 3,428 new positives in the 145,642 tests reported.
Suffolk County’s positivity rate climbed to 2.7% in testing done Friday.
Six of the state’s 10 regions had positivity rates above 2% in the latest report, with the Western New York Region the highest in New York at 4.8%.
Coronavirus coverage, maps and cases by town
Suffolk County yesterday reported 259 new COVID-19 diagnoses in 9,743 new tests as of Friday, when there were 50,728 confirmed COVID cases in Suffolk. An additional 30,285 people have tested positive for antibodies to the disease, the county said in its daily update.
As of Saturday, there were a total of 945 confirmed COVID cases in Riverhead Town, up 11 from the day before, according to the county health department. There were a total of 49 new COVID diagnoses in Riverhead residents from Nov. 1 through Nov. 7. There were 69 new cases among Southampton Town residents in the same period.
There were 57 people hospitalized for COVID in Suffolk hospitals on Friday, the most recent data available from Suffolk County. There were eight new admissions and eight discharges in the 24 hour period reported. Ten COVID patients were in intensive care units.
The uptick in New York, which this spring was the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, comes at a time when the virus is surging across the country. New York’s daily cases peaked at 11,571 new cases on April 14 — the first confirmed case was reported March 2.
The first two COVID deaths in New York were reported March 14. By May 31, nearly 24,000 New Yorkers had died of the disease, according to the state health department. As of Saturday, the death toll in New York was 25,947.
New cases and fatalities declined in June and have remained consistently low, even as the virus surged in other regions of the country. To date, more than 9.8 million Americans have been diagnosed with COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were 236,547 fatalities as of noon yesterday, according to the CDC website.
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