The number of COVID-19 deaths across the state fell on Friday to 128, after reaching its post-spring peak of 166 on New Year’s Eve, while Suffolk County continued to have many more coronavirus deaths than than Nassau County, informed the state on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in New York has exceeded 1 million, according to data released by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s office.
Suffolk on Friday had 17 deaths in COVID-19, the highest number of all counties in the state. Nassau was eight.
In December, Suffolk had 83% more deaths from COVID-19 than Nassau, a Newsday analysis of state data shows: 256, compared with 140 in Nassau.
Experts say it is unclear why the death gap is so large.
“It may just be the fact that there aren’t that many people distancing themselves socially and wearing masks, and that there are more parties or behavioral issues,” said Dr. Bruce Farber, head of infectious diseases at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset and Long Jewish Island Medical Center in New Hyde Park.
Sean Clouston, an associate professor of public health at Stony Brook University, said the root may be partly the coronavirus spreading during Thanksgiving meetings, which led infected people to infect others.
“The way these infections grow is fast,” he said. “And they are based on each other.”
Deaths and hospitalizations delay new infections, so the effect of many December parties is yet to be seen, he said.
With COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths much higher than several weeks ago, and concerns about a mutant version of the coronavirus that is believed to be more contagious, “things don’t look good in the short term,” said Farber.
Across the state, the death toll has been over 100 since December 14, except for one day, after normally staying in the single digits during the summer.
The more than 15,000 new positive test results across the state on Friday brought the number of confirmed coronavirus cases to 1,005,785. This is the fourth largest in the country, according to the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University.
“There is no doubt that the number of cases far exceeds the reported number,” because many people – especially those with mild or no symptoms – do not get tested, and the tests were very difficult to obtain during most of the spring, said Farber.
The new numbers of deaths and cases occur as vaccinations against coronavirus continue across the state. By early Saturday afternoon, New York had vaccinated some 274,000 people, said Jack Sterne, a spokesman for Cuomo.
New York ranked fourth with Pennsylvania for the highest number of vaccinations per capita in the 15 most populous states in the country, according to the latest data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention available to the public, as of 9:00 am Saturday , when the number of vaccinations in New York was listed at around 237,000.
The vaccination rate in New York was 1,218 per 100,000 people, lower than the 1,342 in Illinois, which was the highest among the large states, but significantly above the large state with the lowest rate, Georgia, in 708, according to the CDC. Eight smaller states, including neighbors Connecticut and Vermont, had rates in excess of 2,000.
Positivity rates on Long Island fell slightly on Friday, and dropped a few percentage points from Tuesday, when they were in the double digits.
Another 1,409 residents of Nassau County tested positive for coronavirus on Friday, for a positivity rate of 7.9%, up from 8% on Thursday and 10.5% on Tuesday.
“After a peak four days ago, we had three days of a slight decline in positivity, a pattern that I hope will continue,” said Nassau executive Laura Curran in a statement.
In Suffolk, 1,786 tests were positive, or 9.6%, compared to 9.7% on Thursday and 12.8% on Tuesday.
“Start 2021 the right way,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted on Saturday. “Practice social detachment, avoid large meetings, wear a mask and get tested.”
With Matthew Chayes
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David Olson covers health care. He has worked at Newsday since 2015 and previously covered immigration, multicultural issues and religion at The Press-Enterprise in Southern California.