NY COVID-19 Case Increase Needs Context: State, Local Officials

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — The new coronavirus omicron sub-variant BA.2 has led to a slight increase in new cases statewide, Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a briefing Monday.

However, context is important.

"When you go from 8 cases per 100,000 to 11 cases per 100,000, yes, it is 30 percent, but it was just a few months ago, we had over 400 cases per 100,000," Hochul said. The state's overall positivity rate is 2 percent, compared to 23 percent in January.

In the Hudson Valley, context is essential to understanding an uptick that seemed to signal a massive outbreak over the weekend in Ulster County, with cases up to 111 per 100,000 residents.

"We on Friday got notice of a local hospital that had a backlog of cases that they never sent us," Assistant Deputy County Executive Dan Torres told Patch. "Most have since been cleared. Some were a year old."

While not current, the data needed to be added to the county's and state's records for the sake of accuracy, Torres said.

Even with a rise in cases in the BA.2, which is a sub-lineage of the omicron variant, state officials don't expect to see a surge, according to Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett.

"At the moment, BA.2 comprises about 42 percent of all the cases here in the state. It has been rising over the past couple of months, but we have not seen the kind of rate of growth and this dominance that we've seen in the UK and in Europe," she said at the Monday briefing. "BA.2 is more transmissible, as you know, than the original variant, but it does not appear to cause more severe illness and it doesn't appear to have any more ability to evade the vaccination immunity."

Bassett urged booster shots for those who are concerned or in close contact with small children, the elderly and people whose immune systems are compromised due to chemotherapy or other reasons.

Dr. Kirsten St. George, director of virology and chief of the laboratory of viral diseases at the Wadsworth Center, said scientists at the lab are constantly analyzing test results from across the state. She said the increase in the proportion of BA.2 has increased more slowly in New York and elsewhere in the U.S. than in many other countries.

There are reports that Thursday's 30 percent increase in cases are results of the omicron BA.2 sub-variant, Hochul said.

"We're not being alarmist about it," Hochul said. "We're just transmitting the information as we get it. But the number one basic way to deal with this right now is if anyone feels symptoms at all, just get tested immediately."