NY COVID Positivity Rate Steeply Drops 66.6% in the Last Two Weeks

By Yehudit Garmaise

The COVID positivity rate statewide is not only going down, but it has steeply dropped a stunning 66.6% in the last two weeks, said Gov. Kathy Hochul said this morning at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton. 

“We have been waiting for this moment, and we are finally trending the direction we want to go: and that is downward, downward, downward,” the governor said. "We are not through the surge yet, but boy those numbers look good.”

On Jan. 7, 90,000 New Yorkers tested positive with COVID, and today, that number stands at 28,296.

Thankfully, today however, for the first time since Dec. 20, the state’s positivity rate is in the single digits [of COVID positivity] again, the governor said.

“We are very excited to be below 10%,” she said. “We have dropped significantly in the last couple of weeks. Almost all the areas statewide are trending downward.

On Jan. 2, when the state’s COVID positivity rate hit its peak at a shockingly high 23%, that high number was not just attributable to the Omicron variant, but to New Yorkers’ increased gathering and traveling that took place over the winter holidays.

“[The rise in COVID positivity] is what we predicted when we saw people not changing their behavior for Thanksgiving, despite all of our warning,” Gov. Hochul said. “They gathered over the holidays, and look at the peak that occurred.”

Hospitalizations are also now way down, the governor said, who reported that while on Jan. 12, the state had almost 13,000 New Yorkers hospitalized with COVID, now that number is down to 1,100, although some hospitals still are not allowing elective surgeries to ensure capacity for people who are sick.

Although the COVID positivity rates are dropping precipitously, tragically, hundreds of New Yorkers continue to die every day from the virus.

“This is still to be taken very seriously, and we are not taking our foot off the pedal until we can declare that we can manage without all the restrictions, but we do believe that we should keep doing everything we are doing,” the governor said about staying socially distant, getting vaccinated, and wearing masks.

Photo by: Lensky Photo