Cuomo’s Five-Day Countdown Begins Today

Vaccination Day December 15?: Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Sunday that, pending FDA approval and additional state review, New York State expects to receive 170,000 COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and begin inoculations by December 15. He also expects New York will receive an unspecified additional amount of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna later in the month.

Cuomo’s Five-Day Countdown Begins Today

At his Monday press conference, Cuomo also said that if coronavirus hospitalization rates do not stabilize within the next five days he will order restaurants in New York City to close and restaurant capacity in the rest of the state to be reduced from 50% to 25%. While saying that he expects hospitalization rates to increase, he did not specify what metrics would trigger or avert new restrictions. Cuomo also defined Critical Hospital Capacity (defined as 90% capacity) guidance that would trigger regional shutdowns along the lines that persisted in the spring New York Pause. Under his new guidelines, any region whose 7-day average hospitalization rate indicates that they would reach Critical Hospital Capacity within three weeks time would be subject to shutdowns of all non-essential businesses.

New York currently has 54,000 hospital beds, thirty-five thousand currently occupied. If the virus continues to spread, there are some steps the state can take to stave off Critical hospital Capacity which would trigger lockdowns. New York hospitals could surge to 75,000 beds. Additionally, the state could eliminated elective surgeries. That would open up 17,000 beds leaving up to 58,000 beds for coronavirus patients. Currently 4,602 COVID patients are hospitalized in New York. Today Cuomo ordered hospitals to increase bed capacity by 25%.

State Positivity Rate Increases to 4.89%

Meanwhile New York’s coronavirus positive test rate increased to 4.89% last week – up from 3.52%. Positivity rates in all New York Micro-Cluster Focus Zones increased to 6.29% from 5.14%. And non-focus zone areas increased to 4.42% from 3.02%. At its peak last spring, New York’s positive test rate was 50% but dropped to just 1% by Labor Day. Nationally, the 7-day rolling average positive test rate is 10.4% according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine’s Coronavirus Resource Center. The US positive test rate peaked at 21.9% in the spring and bottomed at 4.1% in June and 4% in October.

Westchester among state’s hardest hit counties

New York’s total number of Focus Zones remained unchanged last week at 29 as did Westchester County’s with six. The Mid-Hudson Region, is the fourth hardest hit of New York’s ten regions with a 7-day Rolling Average Positivity Rate of 5.97%. Westchester County is right on average for the region. Last week the county conducted 75,190 COVID tests, 4,493 (4.975%) were positive. Western New York (Buffalo) has the highest positive test rate at 7.4%. Followed by the Finger Lakes at 6.8% and the Mohawk Valley (between the Catskills and the Adirondacks) at 6.35%. Westchester County’s Focus Zones had a mixed performance last week with some experiencing higher positive test rates and others saw their positivity rates drop.