Which face mask protects best against COVID-19? Chris Glorioso heads to a factory to get the answer.
What to Know
- Breakthrough COVID infection rates and infections among the unvaccinated are sharply down in NY compared with last week's data, while the risk of hospitalization has also declined for both groups
- Unvaccinated New Yorkers are still at least 14 times more likely than fully vaccinated New Yorkers to be hospitalized for COVID and eight times more likely to be infected, the latest data shows
- The latest vaccine effectiveness data from the state supports the overall trends in core viral rates: Daily cases have plunged, hospitalizations are down and deaths are holding at their recent high
New COVID infection data released by New York Thursday shows in the clearest terms yet the across-the-board retreat of the omicron wave, with both breakthrough and unvaccinated rates plunging by half since the last weekly report, which marked the first time either dipped since omicron emerged in the state.
The latest week of data, which covers the Jan. 10 week, shows 125.5 per 100,000 fully vaccinated New Yorkers were infected, nearly half the rate (243.5) from the prior week. For unvaccinated New Yorkers, the risk more than halved -- from 2,009 COVID infections per 100,000 to 996.4 in the latest period of study.
Hospitalizations, which lag increases in cases, are now starting to trend down from the omicron peak. The dropoff is slower than the case descent -- with 5.17 per 100,000 fully vaccinated New Yorkers and 72.42 per 100,000 unvaccinated New Yorkers being admitted for COVID in the Jan. 10 week of data, the latest available.
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Still, it's the first dropoff on that metric for both groups since the data period ending Nov. 1, when omicron was likely already circulating in New York City and the U.S. And it again shows the unparalleled power of vaccination, as one Manhattan ER doctor put it a day ago, to prevent severe COVID-linked illness and death.
Daily hospital admissions over time by vaccination status
Unvaccinated New Yorkers are still at least 14 times more likely than fully vaccinated New Yorkers to be hospitalized for COVID (last week's differential was about 13-fold, perhaps another indication of the vaccine-evasive variant's retreat).
They're about eight times as likely to get infected. Omicron, known for its heightened ability to infect vaccinated people, closed the gap on that metric by any account, but the risk remains markedly higher for people who aren't immunized.
The latest vaccine effectiveness data from the state supports the overall trends in core viral rates: Daily cases have fallen dramatically, hospitalizations are generally declining. Deaths, the ultimate lagging indicator, are holding at their recent high.
According to Gov. Kathy Hochul's Thursday update, the rolling seven-day case average is down 47.1% from the prior rolling average, while new cases per 100,000 residents are declining in every one of the state's 10 regions.
New York City, which saw record-breaking daily cases and up to one in three COVID tests coming back positive earlier this month, now has the lowest rolling positivity rate of the 10 regions (11.52%), followed by the Southern Tier, which has among the lowest vaccination rates regionally but conducts nearly 17 times fewer daily tests than the city, which owns the second-highest regional vaccination rate.
Two other highly vaccinated, denser regions -- Mid-Hudson (79.8% vaccination rate for adults) and Long Island, which holds the highest vaccination rates for adults among the 10 regions at 87.2%, own the third- and fourth-lowest rolling positivity rates, respectively (13.26% and 15.51%), as of the latest report.
New statewide hospital admissions, meanwhile, are down 20.5% from the prior seven days, with the total of 11,370 on Thursday marking a decline of nearly 460 patients over the previous day, Hochul's office said.
The clear trend lines may indicate New York's statewide mask-or-vaccination order for businesses may soon be lifted. Hochul was asked last week, as she confirmed the downward trends, if she planned to let the order lapse on its set Feb. 2 expiration date. She said she wanted a bit more time before making a decision.
