SANTA, STAY HOME
After T’giving spike, Yule nightmare feared
You can’t dodge science.
In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, health experts had warned against travel, large gatherings and flouting face-mask guidelines during the holiday — and new data shared with the Daily News show COVID-19 took a toll on New Yorkers who ignored that advice.
The number of coronavirus cases in New York City sharply escalated after Thanksgiving — with more people diagnosed with the virus on Dec. 1 than on any other day since mid-April, data compiled by Mayor de Blasio’s office shows.
The shocking increase could be a somber predictor of what to expect after Christmas if people again flout anti-virus safety measures, the data suggest.
The figures point directly to get-togethers on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 26, as the superspreader events that triggered the spike. The COVID-19 virus incubates for an average of five days before a person starts showing symptoms.
Health officials believe a second spike in cases noted on Dec. 7 indicates a new wave of infections as people who caught the virus on Thanksgiving exposed other family members who then tested positive.
The message for Christmas is simple: The science doesn’t lie, and is unforgiving.
In light of the new data, city officials are urging New Yorkers not to make the same mistake this Christmas and New Year’s.
“This holiday season, we are asking New Yorkers to bring in the new year safely,” said city Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi in a statement.
“To curb the spread of the virus, everyone should not travel and avoid gathering in groups. These coming weeks are a pivotal time in the pandemic. We need everyone to take precautions and care for one another.”
COVID-19 hospitalizations have continued to surge in the city, leading state health officials to implement another indoor dining ban last week.
There were 127 deaths in the Empire State on Saturday, and more than 6,000 New Yorkers hospitalized statewide with the deadly virus, Gov. Cuomo said.
With the positive test rate still above a dangerously high level of 5%, the death toll hovered below eight-month-high records set earlier this past week — while sky-high hospitalization and intensive care numbers promise more devastation in the weeks ahead.
Cuomo on Sunday urged federal officials to impose restrictions on travelers from the United Kingdom after British health officials confirmed a highly contagious variant of COVID-19 was rapidly spreading through the European nation.
The reports of the new mutation — which researchers said is just as deadly as previous coronavirus strains but 70% more contagious — prompted British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to reimpose heavy lockdown measures for much of the country and caused several countries, including the Netherlands and Belgium, to ban travelers who enter from the U.K.
With the vaccine in sight, de Blasio was making the rounds at
Sunday Mass to ensure every New Yorker feels comfortable taking it. In a pair of addresses at churches in Jamaica, Queens, he urged Black New Yorkers to get the vaccine as it becomes available.
The mayor acknowledged a long history of discrimination among American medical professionals, but asserted the vaccine distribution would be different.
“If someone says there’s a bad history in this country the way people of African descent have been treated by the medical community, [that it] bears the clear stamp of institutional racism, you are correct,” he said during a service at United Apostolic Church.
“That is tragic, but we will not let that hold us back. We don’t want to live in that bad past. We need to write a new chapter, a new chapter of decency and fairness and respect for all people.”
State health officials were expected to begin distributing COVID-19 vaccines to nursing home residents on Monday, six days after health care workers across the state received the first jabs.
De Blasio said a speedy vaccine distribution is crucial for communities of color in New York, which have seen higher fatality rates from COVID-19 than the city’s white residents.
“If the vaccine can protect people of African descent, Latinos, Asians, if the vaccine can right that wrong, I don’t want to see a tragedy where people distrust it and turn away from it because of that all-too-painful, all-too-true past,” said de Blasio.
“How about in this time we rewrite the rules together? Imagine a world where there was some fairness.”