Long Island's COVID-19 positivity levels linger above infection lows, data shows

COVID-19 positivity levels from testing on Long Island and statewide have decreased since a holiday season spike, but are stubbornly tracking above levels of last summer and the period before the surge, according to state figures issued Tuesday.

Positivity levels increased slightly, locally and across New York, in test results from Monday, as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said widespread vaccinations are the key to ending the pandemic.

The seven-day statewide average was 3.24% in the results from Monday, up from 3.22% and 3.15% the previous two days.

Long Island had the second-highest level of all regions in the state, registering 4.53% — also a slight increase from previous days, though overall Suffolk and Nassau counties have seen a decrease in new cases in the last 30 days. New York City’s weekly average was 4.21%.

The statewide daily positivity rate was 4.14%, with 6,508 new positives from 157,096 test results on Monday.

Last summer, the level of new positives hovered around 1% on Long Island and statewide. While the seven-day average of infections in the state has declined from a Jan. 11 peak, Monday's level of new positives ranks well above an Oct. 1 pre-surge average of 1,125 over seven days, according to a Newsday analysis.

Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said her administration is working to understand why the positivity rate has plateaued.

"One idea that came up is that with more people being tested for high school sports, those young people might have gone undetected and asymptomatic — that could be one of the reasons contributing to that," she said in a COVID-19 briefing on Tuesday.

Nassau County Health Commissioner Larry Eisenstein, an infectious-disease doctor, estimated there were more than 500 positive cases reported Monday. He also said the data suggests that a healthier, asymptomatic population might be testing positive.

"I believe we need to start getting back to the things we normally do. We need to start living again and not be isolated and get our economy back up and running. As more people are becoming vaccinated you are going to see more of that but we have to do it safely," Eisenstein said.

If a group of people are not vaccinated and they are socializing, they really need to take precautions, Eisenstein said.

'Final touches' on Coliseum vaccine site

The number of new confirmed positive COVID-19 casesMonday was 623 in Nassau County, 652 in Suffolk County and 3,370 in New York City, according to state data. Last summer, each county on Long Island had slipped below 100 new confirmed cases a day.

Statewide, 51 people died on Monday of causes related to the virus, including five in Nassau and eight in Suffolk. The statewide toll in the summer often ranged in single digits.

Still, Curran sounded notes of optimism, saying nearly 50,000 people have been vaccinated at the three county sites and her administration is "putting the final touches on the county mass vaccination site at Nassau Coliseum."

"We are getting more residents vaccinated in Nassau County than in any other large county in New York State," Curran said.

More than 27% of the approximately 1.3 million residents in Nassau have received at least one vaccine dose, Curran said. Across the state, 22.9% of the population had received at least one dose of vaccine. The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require two doses, while Johnson & Johnson's vaccine is completed with one shot.

Those vaccinated residents have gone to distribution sites run by either the county, state, New York City, hospital, a health care facility, a house of worship or a local pharmacy.

Vaccine supply on Long Island is about to "dramatically increase," Curran said, citing the new vaccine sites at Stony Brook Southampton, SUNY Old Westbury and Suffolk County Community College’s Brentwood campus.

Cuomo has said the number of vaccines delivered by the federal government to New York will likely remain flat this week, but start to quickly ramp up after that.

President Joe Biden has said every American adult who wants it should be able to receive a vaccine by the end of May.

Curran said the county continues to reach the most vulnerable residents, such as seniors and minority populations. On Friday and Saturday, the county Health Department will run two new pop-up vaccine sites in New Hyde Park that are expected to inoculate about 1,000 residents in total.

A preregistration online queue, run by the county, has about 7,000 people in it, Eisenstein said.

"Once you are preregistered, we send you an email when we have appointments available with a calendar link and people can pick their times. And about 50 percent of people do pick a time, if they don’t they stay in the queue and then they get another chance and then another. After three weeks of turning us down, then we clear that spot so that other people get in," Eisenstein said.

The total number of hospitalizations for COVID-19 in Nassau has been cut in half since January and admissions to intensive care units are down 48% for the same time period, Curran added.

Cuomo said the state is readying for an increase in the supply of vaccines: "New York's ever-expanding vaccine network can handle more supply than the state receives, so we're ready to get even more shots in arms when the time comes."

With Matt Clark

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