COVID CONTAINED IN WESTCHESTER

Hits: 162

Hits: 5

COVD CONTAINED IN SECOND WEEK OF JANUARY DOWN TO 1,520 from last week

WPCNR CORONAVIRUS SURVEILLANCE. Statistics, NY State Covid Tracker. Observation & Analysis by John F. Bailey. January 16, 2023:

WESTCHESTER COVID INFECTIONS DECLINED 20% IN WEEK THE 2ND  WEEK OF JANUARY

From January 1 to  7, the first week of the New Year, the county reported 1,896 infections after the New Years socializing  slightly more than the 1,771 recorded the last week of December.

From Sunday January 8 through Saturday January 14 infections numbered 1,520, a decline of 20%. Infections the month of December in Westchester numbered 9,003. 

The decline of 20% this past week marked the first time in 10 consecutive months that Westchester had lowered infections to  close to 200 a day (217).

Significantly,  midweek infections had been rising sharply on  Monday Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays for the 6 weeks from the fweek after Thansiging through  December and through last week  reflecting faster infections among Westchester residents– indication more persons socializing over weekends were coming down with covid faster than the usual one week incuabation period.

Last week, that changed. Infections  Sunday through Saturday were under 300 a day.

Last week Westchester averaged  217 lowering close to 200 a day. Is this the real turtle soup or is it “the mock?”

The takeaway from second week in January performance shows a 1 new infected person infecting less than 1 person. This is the first time since late in March 2022 that Westchester new covid cases are not infecting more than 1 person. Containment of the spread of the disease occurs when one person spreads the disease to 1 person or less.  

For ten months Westchester through relaxation of social distancing, gathering restrictions and the state dropping mask restrictions in schools and restaurants, and citizens choosing not to get fully vaccinated had pushed the disease to a 5th wave in November and December.

Now with this one week we seem to have reversed that.

Next week bears watching to see if midweek growth in infections returns and pushes back up to the unacceptable 300 infections a day level is again reached.

As we have seen the last 10 months “feeling good that covid is behind us or just part of life” philosophy espoused by leaders who should know better, created a huge wave in July of over 10,000 infections. Which was cut to 6,000 infections in August. But then with schools wide open in September, the disease gathered momentum again. This  was blamed on the variants of the diease.

The public by not getting fully vaccinated or boosted shots did get infected when they thought they were safe and socializing and schooling in relaxed in school environments contributed to that, adding 5,000 infections in September; 5,216 in October; 6,374 in November and 9,003 in December. Policy or the public’s reluctance to belive the disease was still catchable, lack of getting completely vaccinated, or just the reluctance to becareful, wear masks-whatever—that is what has happened.

Or, perhaps persons have gone and completed their vaccinations and are safer than before.

The disease was just about stopped in in Mid-March then the legislature decided to open up restrictions and made the public feel overconfident.

I know I did. I still forget to wear a mask sometimes. It is understandable. Perfectly understandable.

However to know exactly where we are we need to have figures on number of infections per community restored on the county website so we know where we are.

We also need the infections per school district monitoring system back so parent see the true picture – a very bad decision by the State Department of Education to stop that weekly report card. That report card district by district, school by school, showed parents exactly how dangerous or safe their schools were.

Now no parents want to know that? No Superintendents of Schools want us to be aware of the actual success in containing infections? Why wouldn’t they want us to know that. The county health department does know those figures I believe and they should publish that.

Just the facts, ma’am.

Comments are closed.