35 more COVID deaths in state as poll shows most Americans think pandemic has worsened
A health care worker administers a dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at Nassau Community College in Garden City on Jan. 30. As of Monday, 13,205,331 New Yorkers — 66.0% of the population — have received at least one dose of the vaccine. Credit: Bloomberg/Johnny Milano
The daily death toll from COVID-19 in New York State continued in double digits in data released Tuesday, while a new poll showed Americans’ confidence that the worst of the pandemic is over dropping sharply.
A total of 35 people died on Labor Day from causes related to the virus, Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement. The fatalities included two each in Nassau and Suffolk counties. As recently as June the daily death toll for the state was in single digits.
The seven-day average for positivity in testing continued at elevated levels compared to June, with Long Island registering 4.26% and New York State as a whole logging 3.27%. The average on Long Island was 0.35% on June 29.
Medical experts attribute the surge to the highly contagious delta variant, along with relaxed COVID-19 mitigation measures and the refusal of many people to get vaccinated.
"We are continuing to watch the numbers and while some metrics continue to be promising, others are moving in the wrong direction," Hochul said.
"With students back at their schools and colleges and increasingly more people returning to work in-person, it is more critical than ever that we double down on everything we can do to stop the spread of infection. The single best weapon that we have in this fight is the vaccine, which is free, safe and effective."
The number of people hospitalized with the virus increased by 22, to 2,356. The number of new daily confirmed cases was 225 in Nassau, 394 in Suffolk and 1,060 in New York City.
A poll by Long Island University found that the number of Americans who believe the worst of the pandemic is over has plummeted from 53% in June to 23% now as the nation heads toward fall.
That is close to the 25% level a poll by the university found in February.
The new poll also found widespread support for adolescents getting vaccinated, and for wearing masks in schools and public areas.
A total of 72% of Americans said people ages 12 to 18 should get vaccinated. Some 90% of Democrats took that position, while 53% of Republicans did.
About 74% of people polled support wearing masks in schools, while 75% support wearing them in public places.
Some 72% of Americans believe wearing a mask reduces the likelihood of contracting COVID-19, the poll found.
The online poll by Long Island University Steven S. Hornstein Center for Policy, Polling, and Analysis was conducted through SurveyMonkey from Sept. 2-3. It canvassed a national sample of 1,611 adults age 18 and up.
The modeled error estimate for the survey was plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
Meanwhile, in New York City, health commissioner Dr. David Chokshi said a new variant seen elsewhere in the world — known by the Greek letter "mu" and first identified in Colombia — was believed to be less and less prevalent in the city.
"What we’ve seen is that the percentage of mu that is identified in the specimens that we’re sequencing has steadily decreased," Chokshi said, speaking at Mayor Bill de Blasio’s daily news conference.
"It was in about 20% of our specimens in early June; in July that decreased to 7% of specimens, and most recently, it’s making up less than 1% of the cases in New York City, because the delta variant is the variant that’s making up almost all of the cases in New York City,"
With Matthew Chayes
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