WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

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WPCNR STATE OF THE PLAGUE.  FROM NYS COVID TRACKER. ANALYSIS By John F. Bailey. January 3, 2021.

This afternoon will deliver a better fix on whether the shock of 7,000 new positives a day in Westchester County is  over when the positives for Friday are reported.

The December 30 positive numbers issued Sunday night indicate a drop of 50%  or more for Westchester, the 6 other Mid-Hudson Counties,  and the runway leaders in infections Nassau and  Suffolk Counties.  The onslaught of new positives the first 5 days of the last week of 2021 was the highest positives a week ever during the plague. The across-board-the halfing of positives was a welcome respite in the march of covid across the metropolitan area.

New York City’s five boroughs recorded  47, 346 LESS infections than  the day before December 29 when the city recorded  82,996.

 If Westchester continues on the 3,000 infections a day trend it will have slightly less than 20,000 infections the last week of 2021. If positives continue declining on new Covid-19 Tracker reports the next week this will be an indicator that predictions of a covid fade in two weeks will be happening.

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WPCNR The Sunday Bailey. News & Comment by John F. Bailey. January 2, 2022:

This is one of the saddest days of the year.

Brenda Starr always insists we take the Christmas Tree down.

 I remember years ago we kept a tree up in our apartment until February because we did not want to take it down. We eventually  eased the tree off the terrace of our Tarrytown apartment over the railing and into the parking lot below because the needles were dropping so much it would have made a trail of pine needles down the carpeted hall to the elevator through the luxury lobby. I felt that might have gotten us evicted.

But now we are much more on a schedule. Bridge on line. Reading the daily book quota. Writing up the news. Feeding the demanding cat on her (the cat’s) schedule, The tree has to go out today because of my schedule during the week.

 The last day of the two week holiday is by the decree of the editor, Ms. Starr has to be reserved for UN-decorating the tree.

Taking the lights off. Extricating the tree from its stand and pushing it out the backdoor.

The tree was so perfect and congenial this year. Perfect shape. Highly hospital every evening during mandatory Netflixing, Britboc, Acorn, and Amazon Prime video watching.

But then, every husband, boyfriend, or significant other who picks the tree always picks the perfect tree.

As I wrote two weeks ago, a Christmas Tree is like your wife, you know her when you first see her.

The tree is happy to be selected. It adapts to whatever holiday frivolities are placed upon it.

The highlight of every pinetree’s short life is being selected to be a Christmas Tree.

The tree never wants to leave your home, and you are always sad to be removing the bulbs, the icicles, ornaments of long ago. The pictures of children when they were young.

The Christmas Tree when fully decorated is a work of art of the memories of your life, good times, how you felt at different times of your years as a family. It is the Ghost of Christmas Past and Christmas Today.

In an uncanny alchemy of feelings and memories, looking at the decorations takes you back in time and parents, grandparents, doting aunts and uncles, once more are with you whenever you look at the ornaments you have hung.

When we gradually removed them today, I removed the bulbs and, Ms. Starr put them away (she is very organized) in their old cardboard boxes. When I broke one, she said I was removing them carelessly prompting a spat. But I pointed out it was still hangable next year.

When you get to be my age you do not know if this is your last Christmas Tree, so each year I pick one out, I enjoy the process and the decorating, the specialness of the season and the choosing of my gifts with care.

The socializing we all used to enjoy decades ago still remains fresh in our memories.

But, because of the relentless palor of the spread of covid now engulfing our community. We could not see friends as we usually do.

We saw our children. Which is always a pleasure because they do not live far away.

Now on this last day of the Christmas Tree, this muted Merry, not jolly Christmas, the tree made the season.

When I was trying to lift the tree, still standard stalwart and shining down to just its natural coat of branches, it seemed particularly hard to lift out of its stand.

Despite all  screws of the stand being unfastened, it seemed to be hanging onto the stand with its stalwart sturdy stump. I kept gently trying to lift it out of the stand three times.

Still it would not release the stand.

On my next try, I embraced the tree.

It seemed to embrace me back.

It lifted out easily.

It was saying goodbye.

I will miss it.

The perfect tree was departing after another perfect Christmas.

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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.

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“On this New Years Eve I wish everyone a safe and healthy celebration,” Governor Hochul said. “It was a difficult year for so many New Yorkers, lets do the right thing and get vaccinated, and let’s welcome the new year with lots of good health and happiness. If we work together and get vaccinated, we can make 2022 the year we beat the pandemic.”

Today’s data is summarized briefly below:

• Test Results Reported – 339,853
• Total Positive – 76,555
• Percent Positive – 22.53%
• 7-Day Average Percent Positive – 17.91%
• Patient Hospitalization – 7,919 (+546)
• Patients Newly Admitted – 1,718
• Patients in ICU – 1,072 (+52)
• Patients in ICU with Intubation – 525 (+7)
• Total Discharges – 230,850 (+1,194)
• New deaths reported by healthcare facilities through HERDS – 80
• Total deaths reported by healthcare facilities through HERDS – 48,405
  
  The Health Electronic Response Data System is a NYS DOH data source that collects confirmed daily death data as reported by hospitals, nursing homes and adult care facilities only.
• Total deaths reported to and compiled by the CDC – 61,242
  
  This daily COVID-19 provisional death certificate data reported by NYS DOH and NYC to the CDC includes those who died in any location, including hospitals, nursing homes, adult care facilities, at home, in hospice and other settings.

• Total vaccine doses administered – 33,651,483
• Total vaccine doses administered over past 24 hours -137,298
• Total vaccine doses administered over past 7 days -671,674
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with at least one vaccine dose – 89.2%
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with completed vaccine series – 80.6%
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with at least one vaccine dose (CDC) – 95.0%
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with completed vaccine series (CDC) – 82.8%
• Percent of all New Yorkers with at least one vaccine dose – 78.0%
• Percent of all New Yorkers with completed vaccine series – 69.7%
• Percent of all New Yorkers with at least one vaccine dose (CDC) – 84.0%
• Percent of all New Yorkers with completed vaccine series (CDC) – 71.8%

Each region’s 7-day average of cases per 100K population is as follows

Each region’s 7-day average percentage of positive test results reported over the last three days is as follows:

Each New York City borough’s 7-day average percentage of positive test results reported over the last three days is as follows:

Yesterday, 76,555 New Yorkers tested positive for COVID-19 in New York State, bringing the total to 3,469,564. A geographic breakdown is as follows:

Given the rate of spread of Omicron, it is more meaningful to report the percentage of Omicron variants as reported to the public COVID-19 sequence databases, than to report counts of individual cases. This percentage can then be related to the total positive COVID case count in the state. This process is consistent with how the New York State Department of Health has reported on all other variants online: https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/covid-19-variant-data

Data this morning in the GISAID database, the largest repository of SARS-CoV-2 sequences in the world, show the Omicron variant comprised 89% of uploaded sequences from NYS between 12/17/21 and 12/30/21. This is a significant increase from the 78% announced yesterday, which covered 12/16/2021 to 12/29/2021, and evidence of the ongoing rapid spread of this variant.

It should be noted that similar data reported from the CDC, updated this week, uses a statistical model to project the variant percentages for a more recent timeframe. This projection approach partly explains the different percentage for the Omicron variant reported by CDC this week.

Yesterday, 80 New Yorkers died due to COVID-19, bringing the total compiled by HERDS to 48,405. A geographic breakdown is as follows, by county of residence:

All New York State mass vaccination sites are open to eligible New Yorkers aged 12 years and older for walk-in vaccination on a first-come, first-serve basis, with 10 sites open to eligible New Yorkers aged 5 and older. People who would prefer to schedule an appointment at a state-run mass vaccination site can do so on the Am I Eligible Appor by calling 1-833-NYS-4-VAX. People may also contact their local health department, pharmacy, doctor or hospital to schedule appointments where vaccines are available, or visit vaccines.govto find information on vaccine appointments near them.

New Yorkers looking to schedule vaccine appointments for 5-11-year-old children are encouraged to contact their child’s pediatrician, family physician, county health departments, Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), rural health centers, or pharmacies that may be administering the vaccine for this age group. Parents and guardians can visit vaccines.gov, text their ZIP code to 438829, or call 1-800-232-0233 to find nearby locations. Make sure that the provider offers the Pfizer-BioNTechCOVID-19 vaccine, as the other COVID-19 vaccines are not yet authorized for this age group.

Visit our new website for parents and guardians for new information, frequently asked questions and answers, and resources specifically designed for parents and guardians of this age group.

Yesterday, 31,900 New Yorkers received their first vaccine dose, and 16,560 completed their vaccine series. A geographic breakdown of New Yorkers who have been vaccinated by region is as follows:

The COVID-19VaccineTracker Dashboardis available to update New Yorkers on the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. The New York State Department of Health requires vaccinating facilities to report all COVID-19 vaccine administration data within 24 hours; the vaccine administration data on the dashboard is updated daily to reflect the most up-to-date metrics in the state’s vaccination effort. New York State Department of Health-reported data from NYSIIS and CIR differs slightly from federally-reported data, which is inclusive of federally-administered doses and other minor differences. Both numbers are included in the release above.