Living With COVID: What White House Plan Means In New York

NEW YORK — People who test positive for COVID-19 at pharmacies in New York will be able to get anti-viral pills “on the spot” under a new strategy unveiled Wednesday by the White House.

The new national COVID-19 preparedness plan still must be approved and funded by Congress, but formalizes pledges President Joe Biden outlined in his State of the Union speech to make the virus threat more manageable.

It makes more vaccines available and calls for better surveillance of new variants, but rules out school and business closings as optimism grows that COVID-19 will soon be an endemic disease.

“We look to a future when Americans no longer fear lockdowns, shutdowns, and our kids not going to school,” the plan states. “It’s a future when the country relies on the powerful layers of protection we have built and invests in the next generation of tools to stay ahead of this virus.”

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Here’s how things stand in New York as the state enters the third year of the pandemic.

With a few exceptions, masks in New York are no longer mandatory. On Wednesday, schools were no longer requiring masks to be worn indoors. Masks are still required in some places, such as public transit, homeless shelters, jails, adult care facilities, and health care settings.

On Wednesday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the lowest number of hospitalizations since Nov. 10 and a statewide seven-day average positivity under 2 percent.

The number of tests reported Wednesday was 129,162, with 2,124 positive results, for a 1.64 percent positivity rate. The seven-day average percent positive was 1.84 percent.

Patients hospitalized decreased by 26 to 1,832, with 229 newly admitted patients. The number of patients in ICUs is down 13 to 310. Fewer people are intubated. There were 19 deaths reported Wednesday for a total of 54,760 since the pandemic began.

The percentage of all New Yorkers who have completed the vaccine series is 73.2 percent, according to the state Department of Health.

In the United States, COVID-19 has claimed nearly 1 million lives in two years, more than in any other country, according to Johns Hopkins University, which maintains a detailed world tracker and map at its Coronavirus Resource Center website.

Nearly 80 million people in the United States alone have been sickened in the five coronavirus waves that took an exacting toll on the economy, disrupted school for millions of students and upended everyday life. New data from the CDC estimates about 140 million COVID-19 infections since the start of the pandemic, HealthDay News reported.

“It’s time for Americans to get back to work and fill our great downtowns again,” Biden said Tuesday. “People working from home can feel safe to begin to return to the office.”

Americans’ growing weariness with the pandemic is reflected in Biden’s sagging approval ratings. A new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows that only 41 percent of Americans approve of the job Biden is doing, and only 33 percent think the country is headed in the right direction.

In a nod to the growing coronavirus fatigue, Biden highlighted a turning point in the pandemic in his State of the Union speech. “Tonight I can say we are moving forward safely, back to more normal routines,” he said.

Here are some things to know about the plan, which still requires funding from Congress:

• The Pfizer antiviral pills that will be made available at pharmacies reduce the chances of hospitalization by up to 90 percent. Biden said in his State of the Union speech up to 1 million pills will be available later this month, and more than double that amount will be available in April.
• Treatments and high-quality masks will be made available to people who are immunocompromised.
• Free coronavirus tests are still available from the government, even for people who previously ordered four tests.
• Steps are in place to respond to new variants with new vaccines within 100 days instead of many more months or years.

About three-fourths of adult Americans are fully vaccinated, and hospitalizations are dropping dramatically as the United States moves past the highly contagious omicron variant. The Biden administration is mindful of last year’s premature victory lap ahead of the delta variant, and is reminding

Vaccines for children under 5 haven’t yet been approved, but Biden said in his speech scientists are working to get those shots in the arms of young children.

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control eased mask guidance for most Americans.