IN WESTCHESTER, NEW CASES DOUBLE FROM 3,602 TUESDAY TO 7,659 DEC 29. 41,656 CASES IN THE 7 MID HUDSON COUNTIES IN 4 DAYS DEC 16-29. WESTCHESTER COVID-INFECTED PERSONS SPREADING DISEASE TO 8 PERSONS FOR EACH NEW INFECTION TWO WEEKS AGO. SPREAD DOUBLING. LONG ISLAND HITS 28,000 NEW POSITIVES IN ONE DAY– UP 50%. NEW YORK 5 BOROUGHS RECORD 83,000 NEW CASES, UP 52% | WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER 3,374,995 VISITS IN ONE YEAR---65,000 VISITS A WEEK BY 985,281 VISITORS

***THE WPCNR DAILY COVID LOGBOOK UPDATED WITH WEDNESDAY COVID POSITIVES FOR THE REGION. THE CORONAVIRUS IS SPREADING AT AT A 50% RATE***

WPCNR CORONAVIRUS MONITOR. Derived from the Coronavirus Workbook updated as of 4:15 P.M Saturday. Observations by John F. Bailey. January 1, 2022:

Covid new infections are sweeping Westchester County and the 6 other counties in Mid-Hudson Valley and doubling number of infections in Long Island and all of New York City. New York City went from 43,135 new positives last Tuesday to 82,996 on Wednesday. (The Covid Workbook is reports two days behind in results..)

Westchester County doubled the number of positive covid persons in one day, going from 3,602 positives Tuesday to 7,659 Wednesday, a 46.1% increase in our county. This is a disturbing development.

Infections are out of control in Orange and Rockland Counties through Wednesday, too. Orange doubled new cases to 3,394 compared to 1,624 on Tuesday. Rockland doubled in new covid cases jumping from 1,536 to 3,212. Dutchess lept from 722 Tuesday to 1,560 Wednesday, also doubling covid new cases. Putnam came close to double new positives, going from519 cases Tuesday to 1,039. A startling increase there Putnam, 45.2 %.. Ulster and Sulivan counties continued the trend up 31% and 43.4%.

NASSAU COUNTY had 44.6% more positives, 15,062, while SUFFOLK was recorded for a 53.9% in crease to 12,350.

The Washington Post yesterday reported that cases in South Africa showed persons not getting ill as seriously from the Omicron variant ( attributed to be more contagious and highly responsible for the remarkable surge in covid infections). The Post also reported the omicron positive patients in South African experienced lower rates of hospitalizatins. A New York Times article published today said that United Kingdom has found in studies on mice and hamsters the omicron variant infects more the throat and windpipe, rather than going deep into the lungs.

However mostly young people were infected who are better equipped to fight the disease. With the U.S. having an older population the infections may afflict the population more seriously. It was predicted the virus may go down in infections in about two weeks.

However it should be noted that the infections are seriously spreading at the rate of 8 persons being infected by every one person testing positive two weeks ago in Westchester County.

Two weeks ago on December 15, Westchester had 938 new cases. If you divide 7,650 new infections on December 29, by 938, you get considering this week infections so far, 7,650 Wednesday in Westchester. Those persons could bring us more infections approaching 62,000 persons by the end of the week January 9 to 15.

If hosptializations continue at the 125 person rate as it was a week ago, this means these 7,650 in cases in Westchester if they continue to be less seriously ill may only generate a 13% hospitalization rate but that still would mean 972 hospitalizations of those 7650. The 972 would not threaten Westchester available beds capacity if hospitalizations continued to go up slowly.

But if hospitalizations go up as they seem be doing, 50 a month ago compared to 125 as of a week ago and the omicron infects us more seriously, the positive spread rate may quickly fill up Westchester County bed capacity. Consider that the 7650 total is only one day of infections! If they all everyday hospitalized at the 124 rate we will have close to 6,000 a week in hospitalizations. by the end of January 15.