Long Island hits new virus peak
State figures: Long Island hits new post-holiday infection peak
The vaccine distribution center at Nassau Community College in Garden City on Tuesday. Credit: Howard Schnapp
In addition to Long Island's surging cases, New York State also saw its number of confirmed cases spike to 17,636 positive tests on Wednesday.
That's a higher number of infections than registered at the height of the spring crisis, though the number of tests were lower through the first few months of the crisis.
During an afternoon briefing with reporters, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said multiple factors have combined to cause cases in the state and region to spike. He also expressed worry about the effect of a potentially more contagious variant from the United Kingdom arriving in the state.
"New fact: U.K. strain, all bets are off, all equations are altered … That’s where we are, and the more cases the higher the hospitalization rate and you are going to start to overwhelm the hospitalization system," he said.
The positivity level on Wednesday was 9.51% on Long Island, 6.38% in New York City, and 7.39% statewide. There were 197 virus-related deaths in the state on Wednesday.
The number of new positives reported today: 1,634 in Nassau, 2,194 in Suffolk, 6,387 in New York City and 17,636 statewide.
The chart below shows the cumulative number of people who have gotten tested for the virus in New York City and in the state.
These lines show the cumulative number of people who have gotten tested for the coronavirus.
Search a map of new cases and view more charts showing the latest local trends in testing, hospitalizations, deaths and more.
Answers to questions about NY's vaccine rollout
A COVID-19 vaccine is administered at Nassau County's first vaccine distribution center in Garden City on Jan. 5. Credit: Howard Schnapp
The state's vaccine distribution has been underway for nearly a month, with initial doses going to hospital workers, health care employees and nursing home residents and staff.
But experts say the process is moving slower than anticipated, and it could be weeks until the vaccine is available to the next eligible group: essential workers and anyone over 75 years of age.
Why is vaccine distribution slower than expected, what's being done to expedite efforts, and who's in the next group to get the vaccine? Those questions and more are answered in this Q&A.
U.S. registers highest death toll yet
Medical workers prepare to manually prone a COVID-19 patient in an intensive care unit at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles on Dec. 22. Credit: AP/Jae C. Hong
The U.S. registered more COVID-19 deaths in a single day than ever before — nearly 3,900 — on the very day the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol laid bare some of the same political divisions that have hampered the battle against the pandemic.
The virus is surging in virtually every state, with California particularly hard hit. Skyrocketing deaths and infections there are threatening to force hospitals to ration care and essentially decide who lives and who dies.
"Folks are gasping for breath. Folks look like they’re drowning when they are in bed right in front of us," said Dr. Jeffrey Chien, an emergency room physician at Santa Clara Valley Regional Medical Center, who urged people to do their part to help slow the spread. "I’m begging everyone to help us out because we aren’t the front line. We’re the last line."
About 1.9 million people around the world have died of the coronavirus, more than 360,000 in the U.S. alone.
Cuomo, de Blasio at odds over NYPD vaccine plan
Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that NYPD officers will immediately begin receiving the vaccine, but Cuomo insisted health care workers be first in line for inoculation. Credit: AP/Mark Lennihan
Officials on Wednesday gave the green light for some NYPD officers to get COVID-19 vaccinations, but it remained unclear how many cops would get inoculated after Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio gave conflicting messages about who would be eligible.
During his daily briefing, de Blasio said the plan would begin immediately and he expected 10,000 patrol cops to be inoculated by Sunday. He said a total of 25,000 NYPD personnel were in the eligibility group.
But during his own daily briefing Wednesday, Cuomo said: "Police who are not health care workers are not yet eligible. We need to get the health care population done first because they are the front line."
The governor said police officers statewide with EMS training are eligible.
More to know
Black Friday shoppers outside a store in Riverhead on Nov. 27. Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas
Consumer confidence in the metropolitan area continued to rebound in December from the pessimism seen last spring when the virus spiked for the first time.
The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid fell slightly last week to 787,000, still a historically high number that points to a weak job market, according to numbers from the Labor Department.
The game shows "The Price Is Right" and "Let's Make a Deal" have joined several other California-based series in extending a holiday production hiatus due to the current virus spike there.
News for you
Taking a trip down memory lane. You can turn back time by visiting these five nostalgia shops on Long Island. One shop is offering a virtual shopping option for movie, TV, music, sports and other memorabilia.
A new bottle shop and bar. Brooklyn-based Threes Brewing expanded to Huntington just before the end of 2020. They had pivoted to doing deliveries during the pandemic, and discovered a big demand for their beer on Long Island.
Helping families by baking. A Baldwin student with a passion for baking recently used her culinary skills to help local families by baking cakes for those heavily impacted by the pandemic.
Plus, a webinar on Friday: Join us as experts gather to discuss some of the unanswered questions submitted for our recent discussion with Dr. Fauci. Register here.
Sign up for text messages to get the most important coronavirus news and information.
Commentary
Brian Pinker receives the Oxford University/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in Oxford, England, on Monday. Credit: AP/Steve Parsons
Messing around with vaccine doses is a gamble. Sam Fazeli writes for Bloomberg Opinion: Every country that is imposing varying degrees of lockdowns because of rising coronavirus infection rates — such as the U.K. did on Monday — is trying to reduce the burden of the disease on its population, health care systems and economy. The best solution, of course, is vaccines, and three shots have proved in trials to offer protection against disease. That’s assuming they are administered based on data generated from clinical trials. But what happens when the protocols aren’t followed?
The U.K., in its desire to vaccinate as many people as possible as fast as possible, has taken the unprecedented step of implementing a vaccine regimen that hasn’t been tested in rigorous clinical trials and doesn’t have solid efficacy data backing it: It’s stretching the period between the first and second "booster" shot for the two vaccines it has so far approved — developed by AstraZeneca-University of Oxford and Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE — to 12 weeks from as few as three.
The U.K. is not alone in considering changes to vaccination schedules, with Denmark and Germany also mulling the same. There is also discussion in the U.S. about taking a similar approach or changing dosage levels to allow the current vaccine stockpiles to get to more people faster. These decisions are being made or discussed by highly respected experts who have reason to believe the tweaks may help in the inoculation effort without unduly increasing risks. I am not sure there is sufficient data to back these decisions.
The reason tinkering with dosage regimens has even come up is because some countries have put themselves into a tight corner in this latest dire stage of the pandemic. Keep reading.
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.
