COVID-19 hospitalizations in New York are on a trajectory that could overwhelm the state’s hospitals if New Yorkers don’t heed warnings against social gatherings as the holiday season continues and double-down on adherence to rules and guidelines for face-coverings and social distancing, state officials say.
Hospitalizations were on a steep upward curve before Thanksgiving and the trend has accelerated since the holiday. Hospitalizations in New York rose 78% in the month of October, then shot up 253% in the month of November. The first 12 days of December saw an additional 38% increase in hospitalizations.
On Oct. 1 there were 647 COVID hospitalizations in New York. On Nov. 1, 1,151 New Yorkers were hospitalized with the disease. By Dec. 1, that number rose to 4,063 people. On Saturday, hospitalizations had risen to 5,410.
The acceleration is slower than it was when the coronavirus outbreak struck New York this spring. The state’s first confirmed case was announced March 1. By April 1, 14,810 New Yorkers were hospitalized. That number exceeded 18,000 by mid-April, when many downstate hospitals came perilously close to being overwhelmed.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo says the state is shifting its focus from positivity rates to hospitalizations, hoping to avoid a repeat of what happened this spring. He has ordered hospitals to increase their capacities by 25% and may order hospitals to end elective surgeries if capacity trends worsen.
The positivity rate is the percentage of positive test results relative to the number of tests reported. An increase in the number of infections is generally followed by increased numbers of hospitalizations, usually 10 to 14 days later. The number of fatalities rise as hospitalizations rise.
How fast and how high these numbers rise will be influenced by a number of factors, including individuals’ adherence to rules and recommendations for mask-wearing, social distancing, hand-washing and holiday gatherings. Hospitalizations and deaths are also influenced by the age and relative health of the patients and improvements in health care protocols over the past several months.
New York’s statewide positivity rate climbed to nearly 5% on Friday and Saturday, according to test results reported by the State Department of Health.
Suffolk’s positivity rate has been over 6% nearly all month so far, with a current seven-day average of 6.3%.
An analysis of data published daily by the county shows that COVID hospitalizations in Suffolk have increased nearly eight-fold in the past six weeks, from a seven-day average of 51 patients in the first week of November to a seven-day average of 397 patients in the week just ended.
Other indicators of rising community spread in Suffolk have climbed markedly during that time period as well.
New COVID admissions in Suffolk hospitals rose from 54 during the first week of November to 341 during the week just ended, a jump of more than 530%. Patients in ICU beds rose from 7 to 66.
The seven-day average test positivity rate in Suffolk rose from 1.7% during the first week of November to 6.3% last week — a 37% increase.
There were two COVID deaths in Suffolk during the first week of November. In the week just ended, COVID claimed 36 lives in Suffolk.
Confirmed cases in Suffolk escalated by 46% in that same time period from 49,650 to 72,455.
Confirmed cases in Riverhead Town jumped 54% in the past six weeks — from 888 cases to 1,366 cases on Dec. 11. They rose by another 23 cases Saturday to 1,389.
Peconic Bay Medical Center had 43 COVID in-patient admissions as of Friday — more than four times the average number of COVID i-patients at the hospital in early November.
Statewide, there were 746 new COVID hospital admissions Saturday. Of the 5,410 people hospitalized for COVID in 55 counties across New York State, 1,009 patients were in ICU, 567 of them on ventilators. The state reported 106 fatalities, brining the total deaths attributed to COVID in New York to 27,785 since March.
“All the experts predicted cases would go up in the fall and winter, and that’s exactly what’s happening around the country,” Cuomo said yesterday in a press release announcing data from Saturday.
“The problem is the cold weather is driving people indoors which in turn is driving more spread. Contact tracing data shows the main driver of cases is household and small gatherings, so we have to adjust our behavior accordingly — avoid these types of gatherings, wear a mask, adhere to social distancing,” the governor said. He urged New Yorkers to “remain vigilant” until the vaccine that has been approved by the FDA is widely available.
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