COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations inch up, state figures show
People dine and walk on Seventh Street in Garden City on Friday. More than half of Americans have returned to pre-pandemic activities, a new study found. Credit: Howard Schnapp
The level of COVID-19 continues to inch up in New York State, with more people getting sick and hospitalized, though the amount of contagion remains well below the spike in January, according to state figures released Friday.
The number of New Yorkers hospitalized with virus-related illness rose by 46 to 994 on Thursday — a bump of 4.8% from the previous day, the state said. That figure is well below the 12,169 people hospitalized on Jan. 14.
Deaths related to the virus remained low — a total of five Thursday — compared with the 187 people who died on Jan. 14, according to state figures. None of the deaths reported Friday was on Long Island.
Looking ahead, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday urged caution for those people planning to travel or gather with loved ones over the April holidays.
"With warm weather and the Spring holidays approaching, make sure you take every precaution necessary to keep yourself and your loved ones safe and healthy before you travel or gather together," Hochul said in a statement.
State health officials say that because of a change in the reporting of virus cases on the federal level — officials no longer require testing facilities to report results — the most reliable metric to measure the impact of the virus on a community is the number of cases per 100,000 people.
Bump in Long Island cases
In New York, the seven-day average for that figure rose to 21.15 on Thursday, up from 18.54 on Tuesday and 19.68 on Wednesday, the state figures said.
The Long Island figure also saw a bump, from 14.74 on Tuesday to 16.21 on Wednesday to 16.95 on Thursday, the figures showed.
Nassau reported 354 new cases on Thursday, and Suffolk had 248, the state figures showed. On Jan. 14, Nassau had 3,154 and Suffolk had 3,563.
Public health experts note that a rise in hospitalizations and deaths often lags behind an increase in cases. They also say that the advent of home-testing could mean that case figures are lower than the actual amounts, as at-home testers decline to report their results.
Masked LIRR travelers at the Hempstead station on Friday. Credit: Howard Simmons
Meanwhile, slightly more than half of Americans say they've returned to doing at least some pre-pandemic activities, although the great majority say they still wear masks in public indoor areas, according to a new poll.
The poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found a public largely divided on returning to their usual activities, even as pandemic-related restrictions such as mask and vaccination mandates are lifted in many states.
Normalcy still elusive
Two years into the pandemic, the survey revealed that, for many people, normalcy remains elusive. Some 59% of people polled said they had returned to some pre-pandemic activities, the poll said.
"Conventional wisdom may be that Americans are ready to put COVID-19 in the rearview mirror and cast precautions aside, but … most adults have not yet resumed all of their normal pre-pandemic activities and most continue to mask regularly in public places," said a Kaiser statement.
Eight in 10 respondents said they'd worn a mask some of the time when indoors in public places in the past 30 days, according to the poll that surveyed 1,243 people across the country from March 15 to 22.
Elsewhere, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone announced Friday that the county will provide about 3,000 free at-home COVID-19 tests to residents from 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday in the lobby of the H. Lee Dennison Building, located at 100 Veterans Memorial Highway in Hauppauge.
Test kits will be given out on a first-come, first-served basis, officials said.
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Craig Schneider is a Long Island native and Stony Brook University alumnus. He joined Newsday as a general assignment reporter in January 2018 after 20 years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
