New York, California reports the number of coronaviruses of concern

New York-The country continues to receive annoying reminders that the coronavirus pandemic is not over yet.

On Monday, New York City had an increased risk level of infection as cases continued to grow steadily. On the other coast, California has recorded a nearly 30% increase in cases over the past week, and some health officials suspect the state is heading for a new pandemic wave.

As the number of cases continued to increase steadily, the city had a moderate or yellow risk of viral infection. This development does not need to be reinstated at this point, but may reinstate public health restrictions.

The city currently has about 2,500 new cases per day, a significant increase from about 600 per day in early March. The latest rise, boosted by the highly contagious Omicron subvariety known as BA.2, has seen case levels as high as when the Delta variety struck the city last year.

In addition, case levels in New York and across the country are probably much higher than official statistics, as many residents are testing at home, and positive home tests are usually included in official aggregates. Not done.

Mayor Eric Adams, who was infected with the virus last month, is focusing on the city’s economic recovery and workers are returning to the office.

Adams emphasizes that hospitalizations and deaths are still low. There are more than 50 new hospitalizations in the city every day, with an average of 4-5 deaths. In January, new hospitalizations increased to 1,000 per day and deaths increased to more than 120 per day.

Democrat Adams, who took office in January, said he would support Governor Kathy Hochul’s maintenance of the subway maskman date maintained by all public transport in the state.

In a road safety announcement in Brooklyn on Monday, Adams said authorities were still paying attention to the number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths from Covid. He said the city had no immediate plans to resume its indoor vaccine obligations in public.

The mayor added, “I’m not there yet. I can’t close the city again. If you make the right decision, you don’t have to worry.”

Early in the briefing, he urged the New Yorker to follow his own example when it comes to weathering Covid.

Many New Yorkers may be ready to survive the pandemic, but the virus is spreading rapidly again. As a result, the city needs to consider regaining some of its expired public health restrictions, said Greg Gonzalves, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health.

Adams introduced a color-coded alert system in March based on the parameters set by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since then, New York has the lowest risk and has been shown in green. That is, virus cases were most often less than 200 per 100,000 inhabitants per week. The city is now above that threshold, health commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan said on Monday.

The warning system lists some steps that Adams should consider at a medium level. Request masks again at school and revive the city’s system to check vaccination evidence at restaurants, gyms and indoor recreational facilities.

According to the alert system, Adams should consider requesting a mask in all public indoor settings if the city enters a high risk level represented by orange.

State health officials recently announced a nasty new development. Two new versions of the subvariants (BA.2.12 and BA.2.12.1, which appear to spread more rapidly than BA.2) appear to be behind the surge in northern New York. According to the CDC, more than 30 counties, including Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Binghamton, are already at high levels of community communication in New York.

California case

California has recorded approximately 5,600 cases of coronavirus per day in the past week, the highest case rate since early March. California’s latest per capita case rate (100 cases per 100,000 inhabitants per week) is just enough to meet the high prevalence threshold for coronavirus, the Los Angeles Times analyzed. The data is shown.

The increase in California coronavirus cases is consistent with the relaxation of covid-19 restrictions such as mask obligations and vaccine validation rules, and the rise of new subvariants of the Omicron strain.

In an interview, Dr. Curtis Chan, Deputy Health Officer in San Mateo County, said in an interview, “We anticipate a small surge that may reflect what we saw in Delta in early July last summer, which is now. It’s happening in May. ” ..

Chan expects more hospitalizations and deaths, but I don’t think the new surge is as bad as last winter’s Omicron wave.

Hospitalization increased by 7% last week to reach 1,037 across the state as of Saturday. Of these, 146 were in the intensive care unit, an increase of 13% over the same period.

Hospitalization is still one of the lowest levels of a pandemic. However, state covid assessment tool ensemble predictions suggest that hospitalizations will increase by an additional 65% by Memorial Day, doubling the number of covid-19 patients in need of intensive care by then.

On Sunday, the state estimated that each infected Californian usually infects multiple people with the virus. This may indicate an increased spread of the virus.

San Mateo County has the highest coronavirus case rate in California, with 222 cases per week for every 100,000 inhabitants. San Francisco is second with a rate of 220. The Los Angeles County rate is 127.

Due to the high test rate, it is speculated that the case rate is relatively high in the bay area. Still, the data are fully concerned that San Mateo County has warned nursing homes, prisons, shelters and similar settings about the need to take additional precautions, Chan said.

“We are certainly seeing it among those who are presenting emergency medical care. [centers and] “Emergency room,” said Mr. Chan. So it’s real. “

Just two and a half weeks ago, all California counties had a low covid-19 community level as defined by the CDC-colored green on the agency’s map. But on Thursday, the CDC designated the three counties as having a moderate covid-19 community level, placing the San Mateo, Santa Cruz, and Marin counties in the yellow layer.

“There are institutional things that each leader of a particular institution or program can do to make the community safer,” Chan said. “Now is the time to activate these responses.”

After mid-February, when the state-wide universal indoor mask obligation is lifted, the state public health service will give Californians stricter advice than the CDC and wear universal masks indoors in public places. Is highly recommended.

Barbara Ferrer, director of public health in Los Angeles County, said the increase in cases stabilized fairly quickly and that increased vaccination and availability of anticovid drugs minimized stress on the hospital system. He said he was expecting it.

Still, if the hospital pandemic trend worsens dramatically, we cannot guarantee that the universal compulsory mask policy will never return.

Feller says Los Angeles County is ready to resume universal mask orders in public indoors if things get worse enough that the CDC designates Los Angeles County as having a high covid-19 community level. Said.

While some people are tired of taking steps to prevent coronavirus infections, health professionals emphasize that it is still wise to take precautions.

To mitigate risk, Los Angeles County recently imposed ongoing masking obligations on airports and public transport. The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit System has imposed similar requirements on the commuter train network.

The information in this article was contributed by Sharon Otterman and Emma G. Fitzsimmons of the New York Times, Longonlin II and Luke Money (TNS) of the Los Angeles Times.