Cuomo: First South African COVID-19 case from Nassau, resident in New York

The South African variant of COVID-19 was found in a resident of Nassau County, said Governor Andrew M. Cuomo on Sunday, in the first confirmed case of the variant contracted by someone living in New York.

Sequencing performed on a sample of the individual done in a New York City laboratory and confirmed in the state’s Wadsworth Center laboratory showed that it contained the South African variant, Cuomo said in a press release.

The individual lives in Glen Head, said Jordan Carmon, a spokesman for Nassau County executive Laura Curran.

Scientists and health officials believe that COVID-19 variants in South Africa and the UK appear to spread faster than the current dominant strain, but more research is needed to determine whether they are more lethal or less responsive to vaccines current.

There have been more than 28 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States since the pandemic began a year ago, according to the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

The nation was about to hit the bleak 500,000 deaths on Sunday afternoon. But the announcement of the first case of the South African strain in the state came when the rate of positive cases of COVID-19 in New York fell below 3% for the first time since 23 November.

The South African variant was first identified in the United States late last month in South Carolina. A Connecticut resident hospitalized in New York City was also diagnosed with the variant last week, said Cuomo.

As of Saturday, 136 cases of the British variant of COVID-19 have been detected in the state, including 10 in Nassau County and 12 in Suffolk County.

The Glen Head resident who tested positive for the South African variant is not likely to be the only Long Islander with this strain, experts said.

“We are still not very clear about how many cases of these variants exist in our area,” said Dr. David Hirschwerk, an infectious disease specialist and acting president of medicine at the Zucker School of Medicine in Hofstra / Northwell in Hempstead. “As of now, a small proportion of positive tests are undergoing genetic sequencing.

Complex genomic sequencing tests help researchers to track variants of COVID-19. Last week, the Associated Press reported that White House officials said there were not enough laboratories in the countries processing samples for genomic sequencing of COVID-19 and promised almost $ 200 million to expand it to about 25,000 samples a week. This is about three times the current level.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, scientists in the United Kingdom said the variant “may be associated with an increased risk of death compared to other variants”, but that further studies are needed to confirm this finding.

The CDC said that both the UK and South Africa variants seem to spread more easily and quickly than other variants. They still do not know how widely they have spread and how they can impact vaccines, tests and COVID-19 therapies.

“(The South African strain) is probably a strain that spreads more easily, but exactly the more and if it is more virulent – that information is really pending,” said Hirschwerk.

Although there is uncertainty about the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines available against the variants, Hirschwerk urged people to be inoculated when they are eligible. Vaccination would, at the very least, reduce the chance of getting a severe form of the disease, even when infected with a variant, he said.

“There continues to be an enormous benefit in receiving vaccines, not only because it [South African] strain is probably still a small portion of the strains we are seeing, but the vaccine has a strong benefit against the UK strain, as well as the standard strain, “he said.

The state registered 6,610 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, including 546 in Nassau County and 513 in Suffolk County. Based on 221,157 test results, the daily positivity rate was 2.99%. It remained highest on Long Island at 4.2%, according to statistics released by the state.

The new figures showed a continued decline in the number of new cases after peaking after the holiday season. On January 5, the state’s daily positivity rate was 8.4%

“We continue to see a reduction in positivity and hospitalizations across the state, which is good news, and this progress is allowing us to reopen the valve of our economy even more,” said Cuomo in a note. “But with the discovery of a case of the South African variant in the state, it is more important than ever for New Yorkers to be vigilant, wear masks, wash their hands and remain socially distant. We are in a race now – between our ability to vaccinate and those variants that are actively trying to proliferate – and we will only win that race if we remain smart and disciplined. “

The state recorded an additional 75 deaths for COVID-19 on Saturday, including four in Nassau County and nine in Suffolk County.

In a statement, Curran said: “We don’t believe the South African variant is more deadly, but it can be more contagious. The best answer is to continue with tried and proven precautions: wear masks, avoid social gatherings, distance yourself, stay at home and get tested when you’re sick. ”

Suffolk officials could not be reached for comment on the presence of the South African variant in Nassau.

Efforts to vaccinate more than 10 million eligible New Yorkers against COVID-19 have been affected because winter storms have delayed federal shipments, according to the state. More than 2.2 million people in the state received their first dose of the vaccine and more than 1.1 million received a second dose, state statistics show.

A total of 416,577 first and second doses have been administered on Long Island to date.

With Jesse Coburn

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