COVID-19 hospitalizations statewide dropped below 5,000 for the first time since early December, and the positivity rate fell as well, the office of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Saturday.
The 2.8% positivity rate, the lowest since Nov. 21, five days before Thanksgiving, is part of a mostly steady decline since Jan. 5, when 8.4% of test results were positive. But there have been some blips: The rate rose on Thursday to 3.02%, from 2.81% on Wednesday.
Experts had attributed the high early January rate to weeks of holiday gatherings, but they have warned of the potential for the rate to rise again because of the spread of more contagious coronavirus variants.
The seven-day positivity average on Long Island fell slightly on Friday, to 4.19%, after rising on Thursday. Long Island and the Mid-Hudson region have the state’s highest positivity rate. The statewide seven-day average is 3.15%.
The 4,954 COVID-19 hospitalizations is the lowest number since Dec. 7 and a sharp drop since mid-January. The post-holiday peak of 9,273 on Jan. 19 was the highest number since early May.
Fourteen more Long Islanders died of COVID-19 on Friday: eight in Nassau County and six in Suffolk. There were 78 deaths statewide.
Another 643 Nassau residents received positive coronavirus test results on Friday, as did 590 people in Suffolk. Of the more than 273,000 test results reported statewide on Friday, 7,647 were positive.
“Protecting New Yorkers and saving lives has always been our top priority, and we’re seeing significant progress in reducing the spread of COVID while vaccinating residents as quickly as possible,” Cuomo said in a statement. “As the COVID numbers decrease, we’ve been able to slowly open the valve and let economic activity increase, but we still have a lot of work to do to defeat this beast once and for all.”
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