New York Gov. Kathy Hochul released data on Friday breaking down COVID-19 hospitalizations by those admitted due to the virus and those admitted for other reasons but found to have the illness.
Included in the data was a chart of how many hospitalized individuals were admitted for COVID-19/COVID-19 complications and how many were admitted for non-COVID-19 conditions.
According to the data set, most COVID-19 hospitalizations in New York City were not due to COVID-19 or related symptoms. The statistics showed the virus did not cause 51% of current hospitalizations. The breakdown shows that 3,060 patients were hospitalized for reasons other than COVID-19, while only 2,992 were admitted due to the illness.
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"My administration is hard at work making testing, vaccines, boosters, and masks more widely available in to fight this winter surge," Hochul said in a statement Friday.
"While we are prepared to deal with whatever comes our way using the tools we know are effective, it will take a concerted effort on the part of every New Yorker to beat this pandemic and protect our loved ones."
The explosive increase in U.S. coronavirus case counts raises the alarm, but some experts believe the focus should be on COVID-19 hospital admissions. And those numbers aren't climbing nearly as fast.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday on ABC that with many infections causing few or no symptoms, "it is much more relevant to focus on the hospitalizations as opposed to the total number of cases."
As the Omicron variant surges across the U.S., new COVID-19 cases per day have more than tripled over the past two weeks. Daily infection numbers have been reaching a record-shattering average of 480,000. Schools, hospitals, and airlines have struggled with operations as infected workers go into isolation.
Meanwhile, hospital admissions averaged 14,800 per day last week, falling short of the peak of 16,500 per day a year ago, when the vast majority of the U.S. was unvaccinated.
Deaths have been stable over the past two weeks at an average of about 1,200 per day, well below the all-time high of 3,400 last January.
