New York state makes up 45 percent of new Covid-19 cases in US

New York state accounts for 45 percent of the nation’s new positive Covid-19 cases. On Sunday, New York recorded 82,350 positive cases out of the nation’s total of 181,948, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

"We have seen an uptick in cases all around us. This is a northeastern phenomenon right now," said New York Governor Kathy Hochul in a press conference. "This is just a devastating time to lose a loved one over the holidays."

New York City leads the state’s count with a seven-day average of 17,334 cases, according to data from the city. Most of the cases are thought to be linked to the highly transmissible omicron variant.

New York also had one of its largest days of testing ever on Christmas eve, with over 400,000 people getting tested. One in every eight came back positive, said Hochul.

Christmas eve set a new record for the number of Covid-19 cases found in a single day. Out of the 400,000 tests, 49,709 people tested positive.

New York hospitalizations also dramatically increased in the last two weeks. On Sunday, 5,500 New Yorkers were hospitalized from omicron, making it the third-largest wave of hospitalizations since the beginning of the pandemic.

The seven-day average of people hospitalized per 100,000 in New York City reached 3.7 on Christmas, from fewer than 1.5 ten days earlier, according to data shared by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The number of children hospitalized increased fourfold since December 5, reported the New York State Department of Health.

“We’ve had more than 3.2 million vaccines administered just since December 1st. Doses, over 33 million just as of 11 a.m. yesterday. 4.3 million booster shots, and you see the gap, we are very excited to hit the 90% of one dose, that is very high,” Hochul said.

“We’re proud of that, but this gap between the one dose and the fully vaccinated is still too large, 82.3, there is a lagging number because there’s a little time between the first dose and the second dose, but we should be catching up with that,” she continued. “So I’m urging everybody – if you had the one dose, be aware you’re on a process you’re a step on a process. You’re not there yet. You’re not protected, particularly against Omicron, which is just breaking through.”