New York State again shattered its record for new daily COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, as one urgent care chain shut down two locations on Long Island because of a crush of people seeking tests and four hospitals said they won’t allow visitors.
State data from testing Tuesday showed 28,924 new cases, Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a news conference. The previous record, set in test results from Sunday, was 23,391.
The figure from Tuesday’s test results was more than double from a week ago, when it stood at 12,944.
The governor said she is boosting the number of testing sites as omicron variant cases soar in a “vertical” direction. She added that the state remains in a better position than in March 2020 and even December 2020. There are substantially fewer people hospitalized with the virus than a year ago, and fewer people are dying.
“We’re not panicking,” she said. “We have the resources we need.”
Still, she said: “This virus is going vertical. It’s going straight up.”
She outlined updates to the state’s efforts to fight the winter surge, including millions more take-home tests, new testing locations at MTA stations including the Times Square and Grand Central subway hubs, and state-run testing sites including two planned for Long Island.
While the number of new cases is soaring, Hochul said the key indicator is the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 – and that number remains under control.
Twelve new testing sites should open before Christmas, she said.
On Long Island, the CityMD urgent care chain is temporarily shutting two locations because it has been inundated with people asking for COVID-19 tests and lacks the staff to keep up, while four hospitals on Long Island will no longer accept visitors because of the rise in cases, officials said Wednesday.
The CityMD chain is closing its centers in Merrick and in Bay Shore on North Sunrise Highway. They are among 19 sites CityMD is shuttering temporarily in the metropolitan area.
In a message on its website, CityMD said it is operating at full capacity and needed to close the locations to preserve staffing levels.
“It is our hope that closing sites now will best allow us to avoid future closures as this surge continues,” the message read.
People hoping to get services at the Merrick site at 1989 Merrick Rd. were redirected to CityMD Bellmore at 2459 Merrick Rd. Those looking for the Bay Shore location at 1757 Sunrise Highway were sent to the Bay Shore-South Sunrise Highway outpost at 1850 Sunrise Hwy.
CityMD’s move came as COVID-19 cases and positivity levels soar on Long Island and throughout New York State.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said Tuesday that the county’s daily positivity level had jumped to 13.7% on Monday.
Hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients in Suffolk have doubled since the start of December, to 326 people, Bellone said on Tuesday.
That is still below the figure of 526 a year ago, though the numbers are “rising rapidly,” he added.
Nassau County’s daily positivity level stood at 12.7% on Monday.
South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore and Huntington Hospital will no longer allow visitors starting Thursday, in response to the recent rise in COVID-19 cases, said Northwell Health spokesman Jason Molinet.
North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset and Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park will suspend visitation starting Dec. 26, he added.
The decisions about whether to allow visitors are made on a “hospital by hospital basis,” and each hospital will continue to evaluate its visitation policy, Molinet added.
Northwell recognizes “the absolute importance that family plays in the healing process,” Joe Moscola, an executive vice president at the health system, said at a news conference Wednesday, where he added that Northwell’s hospitals have been instituting new restrictions including limiting the numbers of visitors.
The health system, which has 11 hospitals on Long Island, is adding the new restrictions, Moscola said, “to prevent any spread of infection.”
The announcement came a day after Mount Sinai South Nassau announced it won’t allow visitors to emergency room patients at its hospital in Oceanside and stand-alone ER in Long Beach as COVID-19 cases peak, among other restrictions.
Meanwhile, both Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley), who is running against Gov. Kathy Hochul in next year’s election for governor, and Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove), a Democrat who is running against her in the primary, on Wednesday criticized Hochul’s handling of the pandemic.
They said the mandate she rolled out last week ordering people to either wear a mask or show proof of vaccination to enter indoor public areas was creating widespread problems and not solving the crisis.
“The mask mandate that was just rolled out has caused mass confusion. The rollout was a debacle,” Zeldin said. “Over half of New York’s counties said they would not comply with the mask mandates.”
Hochul announced the mandate on a Friday, but then on the following Monday when it went into effect said the state would not compel counties to enforce it.
Suozzi said Hochul’s lack of executive experience is causing “chaos and confusion,” and said she lacks a comprehensive plan to attack the crisis.
“This is exploding,” he said. “We’ve been woefully unprepared and we’re paying the price for it.”
Hochul’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At Northwell, the number of COVID-19 patients has been rising since Thanksgiving, with 513 now hospitalized for the virus at Northwell’s hospitals, president and CEO Michael Dowling said Wednesday. That compares with about 900 at this time last year, and 3,500 during the first surge in early 2020, he said.
The number of COVID patients is likely to keep rising after Christmas, potentially to 900 in January, though estimates vary, Dowling added during a news conference.
“We’ll be able to handle it,” he said. “What we’re concerned about is to make sure that everybody gets the booster shot.”
Dowling said about 80% of those who are hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated. About 5% of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 have received a booster shot, according to Northwell.
“If you are vaccinated, it doesn’t mean you won’t get COVID, but the likelihood of ending up in the hospital or in the ICU is greatly diminished,” Dowling said.
Those who have gotten the vaccine and then get COVID-19, he said, are likely to “feel bad for a day or two or a couple of days,” but they’ll build up their own immunity and the level of protection in their community, Dowling said.
COVID-19 patients at Northwell facilities tend to be older than other patients, with an average age of 66, eight years older than the overall patient population, according to the health system.
In the last seven days, Northwell has had about 500 of its 77,000 staff members at hospitals and outpatient centers go out on quarantine because they’ve tested positive for COVID-19 and they’re symptomatic, according to Northwell.
The health system has seen a “very, very dramatic increase” in the number of employees getting boosters, with 600 getting the shots within the last day, Joe Moscola, an executive vice president at Northwell, said Wednesday morning.
“People thought they had more time to go out and make the time to get the booster and now, given the rise in omicron, they’re certainly making that time and that effort,” Moscola said.
He said of boosters: “We’re going to continue to push as hard as we can to make this a requirement of employment within Northwell, because we believe it’s the right thing to do.”
Northwell plans to add new testing sites soon, Dowling said. The sites will open next week, and details about locations and hours will be released soon.
“We are opening up multiple new sites all over the region,” Dowling said. “I think everybody’s going to be increasing testing sites. I also think the state will be increasing sites because as you see out there, you see the lines of people all over the place. And it’s a good thing that people want to get tested.”
The New Hyde Park-based health system now processes between 8,000 and 9,000 COVID-19 tests each day.
With Lisa L. Colangelo and John Asbury
Check back for updates on this developing story.
Sign up to get text alerts about COVID-19 and other topics at newsday.com/text.
