Not 'out of the woods' yet with omicron, doctor says
Northwell doctor: Not 'out of the woods' yet, but in a much better place
A person wearing a mask strolls past storefronts along Main Street in Sayville on Jan. 22. Credit: Newsday/Steve Pfost
Experts say the omicron trend is moving in the right direction, but it is too soon to start removing masks in crowded indoor public settings, Newsday's Bart Jones reports.
"I don’t think we are out of the woods, but we are in a much better place than we had been in the past few weeks," said Dr. David Hirschwerk, an infectious disease expert at New Hyde Park-based Northwell Health.
The number of new daily cases on Long Island has dropped from a record-setting 14,519 a month ago to 1,191 on Tuesday. But that is still far above the levels last May and June, when they dropped to well below 100.
The seven-day average for positivity has fallen from a high of nearly 27% to about 7%. But that is still well above the levels last spring and early summer when they were below 1%.
"If we looked back to the calendar and saw that we had 7% positivity rate in our community at any point before omicron, we would have been fairly concerned about that and maybe even alarmed," Hirschwerk said.
Plus: Is COVID-19 here to stay? Newsday Live's latest webinar features health experts discussing whether the future holds a return to normal, or if the virus is something that will stick around.
Free N95 masks: The Biden administration has begun shipping 400 million N95 masks to be given to adults for free. Find out where you can find them.
The number of new positives reported today: 576 in Nassau, 626 in Suffolk, 3,072 in New York City and 9,418 statewide.
This map shows vaccination rates across Long Island communities, based on federal data provided by New York State. The darker areas have higher percentages of fully vaccinated residents.
Search that map, and view charts showing the latest local trends in new cases, testing, hospitalizations, deaths and more.
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Erin Serpico is an assistant web producer who joined Newsday in November 2018. Originally from New Jersey, she now covers community events and produces local content for newsday.com while also helping run the homepage.
