NY Passes 3-Million COVID Cases, Broome Braces for Rough Winter

New York State has now passed three million cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic while new cases around the state, including in Broome County continue to soar.

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New York had close to 29,000 new cases reported December 22 for a total of 2,014,797.

Broome added 170 cases to its total with over 1,600 residents listed as active and 12 in the hospital.  451 people in Broome County have died in the pandemic. Broome County Executive Jason Garnar says that’s an addition of five deaths since his last update a week ago. 

Garnar is appealing to residents to do everything they can to take pressure off the strained hospital workers dealing with the new surge in COVID cases as well as other health care needs.

The Democrat vaccines are critical to what happens this winter. He says “there is no doubt” cases will go up and hospitalizations will go up and the latter is what is the biggest concern.

Still, there is good news. Garnar says the number of vaccinations is up slightly and the new mass vaccination site operated by New York State at the former David College in Johnson City is helping.  Also helping is the number of residents getting their booster shots.

Meanwhile, the Health Department, due to the sheer number of new COVID cases being identified, is not able to keep up with contact tracing.  Garnar says it may be days after someone tests positive before they get a call from a tracer.  In the meantime, people who have symptoms should quarantine for ten days from the onset of symptoms. Those testing positive who don’t have symptoms should quarantine for ten days from the date they tested positive.