The rate of coronavirus infections continues to edge up on Long Island, with new cases topping 800 on Friday, state figures show.
New infections detected on the Island totaled 819 — 412 in Nassau and 407 on Suffolk — out of 4,385 new cases statewide, state figures released Saturday show. That Long Island total comes in a week in which the region logged around 600 new cases three times. As recently as June, the Islandwide total was well under 100.
New York City recorded 1,944 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, state figures show.
The seven-day average of infections was 2.86% statewide — and 3.50% on the Island. It was 3.36% the day before on the Island and 2.79% the day before statewide.
Also, Gov. Andrew M Cuomo’s office reported Saturday there were 11 new deaths, including one in Suffolk and one in Nassau, bringing the total number of deaths statewide to 43,128. Newsday reported earlier this week that the state’s tally is likely an undercount due to the state’s accounting method.
On the worst days of the pandemic, hundreds a day were dying last year.
Meanwhile, late last week, New York City disclosed the number of known coronavirus reinfections — which the city defines as a person having tested positive for infection, and then testing positive again more than 90 days later.
For the first six and a half months of 2021, there were 5,217 such people who had COVID-19 once and are known to have caught it again — representing 1.1% of the total positive tests, according to figures released by Laura Feyer, a spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio. Last month, in a subset of the six-and-a-half-month period, there were 459 such cases, or 4.8% of all positive tests, she said, adding that the delta variant is potentially to blame.
She did not respond to a follow-up request asking for the comparable numbers and rates of so-called breakthrough cases — a person who had been vaccinated but nevertheless contracted the virus and tested positive.
Representatives of Nassau and Suffolk counties referred inquiries on reinfection numbers to the state health department, whose spokeswoman Abigail Barker said she wasn’t immediately sure whether the state tracks reinfections. There have been 13,301 “breakthrough” cases of all those vaccinated in the state outside of New York City since vaccinations began Dec. 14, she said, but the total number of tests given wasn’t immediately available. It is difficult to get a complete picture comparing the rates of reinfections versus breakthrough cases, because of the way data is tracked in New York, and how it’s disclosed in patchwork ways.
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