First New Yorker Gets Vaccinated as Westchester Positivity Rate Approaches 6%

First New Yorker Gets Vaccinated as Westchester Positivity Rate Approaches 6%: Three days after Governor Andrew Cuomo shut down New York City restaurants for indoor dining, the first Pfizer coronavirus vaccine was administered to Sandra Lindsay, an ICU nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens. According to Cuomo the city was on a trajectory to reach 90% Critical Hospital Capacity which would trigger a shutdown of all non-essential businesses. Though Cuomo indicated that the driver of 73% of new cases is private indoor gatherings, he said that restaurants and bars are “one of the few areas that we think we can actually make a difference.”

State Positivity Rate Above 5%, Westchester 5.91%

Meanwhile New York’s coronavirus positive test rate increased slightly last week to 5.07% from 4.89% the previous week. Two weeks ago the rate was 3.52%. Westchester’s Mid-Hudson Region is the fifth hardest hit region with a 6.0% positivity rate last week compared to 5.97% the previous week. Westchester County’s positivity rate was in-line with its region at 5.91%. Four upstate regions have higher positive test rates than Mid-Hudson including Western New York (6.9%), Central New York (7.2%), Mohawk Valley (8.0%) and Finger Lakes (8.1%). New York State’s positivity rate peaked at 49.9% on March 30 and was as low as .09% on September 18. It wasn’t until November 5th that it returned to 2%.

Nationally, the 7-day rolling average positive test rate increased from 10.4% to 11.4%, exactly where it was two weeks ago, 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.

New Critical Hospital Capacity Tracking Numbers

With Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Winter Plan that focuses on maintaining Critical Hospital Capacity, the state began reporting out available hospital bed and ICU unit data by region this week. The Mid-Hudson Region had on average 26% of its hospital beds and 49% of its ICU units available last week. Statewide 22% of hospital beds and 34% of ICU units are available. Critical Hospital Capacity is defined at 90% usage or 10% availability.

New York State has 54,000 hospital beds, thirty-five thousand occupied as of one week ago. If the virus continues to spread, there are some steps the state can take to stave off Critical Hospital Capacity. New York hospitals could surge to 75,000 beds. Additionally, the state could eliminate elective surgeries. That would open up 17,000 additional beds leaving up to 58,000 beds for coronavirus patients. Currently 5,410 COVID patients are hospitalized in New York up from 4,602 a week ago. The Mid-Hudson region has 645 hospitalized COVID patients. County Executive George Latimer reported last week that Westchester County had 359 people hospitalized with the virus. Governor Cuomo ordered hospitals to increase bed capacity by 25% last week.

New York Forward Positive Test Rates by Region