Study shows Omicron variant took over fast, but patients are not as sick as with previous variants

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul didn’t sugar coat it Monday when speaking about Covid-19 metrics, saying “We’re not in a good place, I’m going to be really honest with you.”

“This is the winter surge we predicted,” she said speaking at SUNY Rochester Educational Opportunity Center.

“We fully anticipate on top of the surge that has already been ongoing that there’s going to be another wave that’s occurring as a result of these holidays,” she said.

“Our numbers are misleading today,” the governor continued, reporting approximately 51,000 positive cases.

“They didn’t go from nearly 90,000 to 51,000,” she said, noting that the shift in latest case numbers is due to people not getting tested over the weekend.

“Unfortunately I’m going to say is a result of the holiday weekend. Those numbers are probably going to be much higher tomorrow,” the governor added.

She said the numbers are “rather shocking,” and while people are testing positive at a much higher rate “the severity of the illness is far less than we’ve seen before.”

She recalled the first Omicron case was reported on Dec. 2 and said “literally a month later we have enough data to say right now — we can say with certainty — that the cases are not presenting themselves as severely as they could have or we had feared. That is a silver lining…”

The state is also reporting an increase in hospitalizations – up at least 9,563. Hochul said the trend in hospitalizations is shooting up, and she’d “love to see it come straight down.”

The governor said beginning Tuesday, her team is going to poll hospitals to see how many people are being hospitalized for Covid-19 symptoms vs how many people are being hospitalized for other issues and develop Covid-19, to give more transparency.

“Hospital capacity is still hospital capacity, you either have beds for sick people or you don’t,” she said.

Speaking from northern New York, she said specifically the Finger Lakes hospitals had 2.8% bed capacity and Monroe County 1.8% bed capacity. “That’s a low number,” she said, reminding that the federal government has sent resources to assist, including nat guard members who are training. 

Right now there are 21 hospitals that have elective procedures paused, something that happens when they are at only 10% capacity left. This is down from 32, she said.

Meanwhile, New York has obtained 37 million at-home test kits and has begun distributing them, in part to Rochester to be distributed to schools.

Hochul said 103 people were reported to have died from Covid-19 related complications, and she mentioned by name a 17-year-old from the Rochester community.

She also said SUNY schools were going to open additional testing sites to the public beginning tomorrow.