‘Living room spread’ drove virus spike
Cuomo says gatherings largely cause of spread
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo unveiled comprehensive contact tracing data on Friday that showed most of the spread of COVID -19 in recent months has come from at-home social gatherings.
Cuomo, who termed this “living room spread,” said that nearly 74 percent of new cases from September through November came from such interactions, based on 46,000 data points reviewed by the state.
The second most common source of spread, at 7.8 percent, was a result of health care delivery in hospitals and other settings. Two percent came among higher education students, 1.5 percent from education employees, and 1.4 percent from people
going to restaurants and bars.
Cuomo noted the relatively low spread from restaurants compared with earlier months, and said the state had “made strides” because of social distancing and other restrictions. The new data also showed relatively low spread stemming from hair salons and personal care facilities (.14 percent) and gyms (.06 percent.)
The contact tracing data for 46,000 cases represents only about 20 percent of the total cases in New York between September and November. State budget director Robert Mujica said the other 80 percent of people infected did not know, or would not disclose, their source of infection.
The governor announced that in addition to 170,000 doses of a vaccine produced by Pfizer, which is set to come to New York imminently, 346,000 doses of a vaccine produced by Moderna are expected to be delivered to the state by Dec. 21.
Cuomo predicted that, despite the imminent beginning of vaccination in New York, the population would not achieve herd immunity and resume life as normal until at least June — and possibly not until September.
The first vaccinations will go to nursing home residents and staff, as well as front-line health care workers who are treating patients.
Sen. Jim Tedisco of Glenville and Sen. Daphne Jordan of Halfmoon argued that under the distribution plan, firefighters and some emergency first responders, who are often the first on the scene to treat those infected with the coronavirus, may not be able to get vaccinated until the second phase.
But at Friday’s briefing, state budget director Robert Mujica said emergency services workers were in the first tier, and set to receive among the first 500,000 doses of vaccine provided by Pfizer or Moderna.
New metrics released
Late Friday, Cuomo released new metrics for the microcluster zones and issued new directions for growing hospital capacity and updated calibrations for business guidelines.
The microcluster metrics focus on limiting the spread of COVID -19 in communities with the highest rates of positive cases and hospital admissions, while also factoring in a region’s hospital capacity. They are as follows:
Red zone: A region where hospital capacity is within 21 days of reaching 90 percent, even after the cancellation of elective procedures and a 50 percent rise in bed capacity.
Orange zone: A geographic area with a 4 percent positivity rate (7-day average) over the last 10 days that is in a region that has reached 85 percent hospital capacity. An area can become an orange zone if the Health Department determines the area or region’s rate of hospital admissions is unacceptably high and a zone designation is appropriate to control the rate of growth.
Yellow zone: An area with a 3 percent positivity rate (7-day average) over the past 10 days; is in the top 10 percent in the state for hospital admissions per capita over the past week; and is seeing week-over-week growth in daily admissions. Cuomo also said hospitals are mandated to expand their bed capacity by 25 percent to prepare for future surges. Cuomo also called on retired nurses and doctors to return to service if they are able, and reminded hospitals of the requirement to report data and maintain a 90-day stockpile of personal protective equipment.
On Friday, the state Health Department announced hospitals must take steps to remain below 85 percent bed capacity by adding an additional 25 percent capacity, eliminating election surgeries, or both.