The rate of new COVID-19 cases statewide continues to fall after a post-holiday bump but Long Island still has New York’s highest seven-day average of positive tests, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Sunday.
There were 12,720 new positive cases of COVID-19 reported to the state on Saturday out of 249,955 test results for a daily positivity rate of 5.09%, Cuomo said in a statement. That figure includes 1,069 new cases in Nassau and 1,117 in Suffolk.
Long Island’s seven-day average was 6.99% on Saturday, the highest region in the state, just above 6.85% in mid-Hudson and 6.74% in the capital region.
“The COVID war still needs to be fought, and while many feel COVID fatigue, that is a luxury we cannot afford. If we tire before the enemy, the enemy wins — it’s that simple,” Cuomo said.
The governor continued an effort to reach out to communities of color where many have expressed reluctance to get vaccinated despite Blacks being hit hard by the pandemic.
In pretaped remarks aired during services Sunday at houses of worship with large numbers of Black congregants — Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn, Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Rochester and The People’s AME Zion Church in Syracuse — Cuomo urged those watching to trust the vaccine.
“The COVID beast is still among us,” Cuomo said in his taped remarks. “We now have a vaccine that will save lives but it will only save lives if we take it.”
On Saturday, he announced vaccine kits were being sent to eight additional churches and four New York City Housing Authority sites in an effort to vaccinate about 3,000 senior citizens and others eligible by Tuesday.
Two of those churches are on Long Island: Memorial Presbyterian Church in Roosevelt and St. Hugh of Lincoln Catholic Church in Huntington Station. Appointments are scheduled by each church.
More than 8,600 people are currently hospitalized due to COVID-19 across the state and 160 New Yorkers died due to COVID-19 on Saturday, state figures show. Patients in Nassau accounted for 11 of those deaths and 13 were in Suffolk.
Nationwide, there are now more than 25 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, according to a report Sunday from Johns Hopkins University and cited by the Associated Press.
