First ‘Brazil’ case in state

B’klynite at Mt. Sinai hosp

A Brooklyn nonagenarian with no travel history has become the first person in New York confirmed to have the Brazilian variant of COVID-19.

The case of the P.1 variant was identified at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and verified by the state Department of Health’s Wadsworth Center laboratories in Albany, Gov. Cuomo’s office said on Saturday.

The Brazilian variant is considered more contagious than the first version of the virus, and it is possible that the available COVID-19 vaccines won’t be as effective against it.

The news came as Cuomo announced that about a quarter of the state’s population, more than 5 million people, had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine as of Saturday morning, with a total of 7,494,596 shots (some of which were second doses) given out.

Thirteen percent of residents have been fully vaccinated.

More than 1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered in the past week alone.

Meanwhile, almost half of American frontline healthcare workers haven’t been vaccinated, a study found.

The report by the Kaiser Family Foundation and The Washington Post found that only 52 percent of healthcare workers had received at least one dose, although they were among the first eligible to receive the shot.

Just 64 percent of all those surveyed said they were confident in vaccine safety and effectiveness.

“I’d quit if work told me I had to take it,” said one response cited in the survey.

There was also backlash in Europe against coronavirus-related safety measures.

Meanwhile, in Miami Beach, spring-break crowds grew so big, city officials declared a state of emergency Saturday.

An 8 p.m. curfew was set to last at least 72 hours, and highways in and out of the city will be shut down overnight.

The crowds were so bad “you couldn’t see pavement and you couldn’t see grass,” interim City Manager Raul Aguila said.