Albany, N.Y. (WBEN) - New York Governor Kathy Hochul unveiled 'Winter Surge Plan 2.0' during a New Year's Eve COVID-19 update and also encouraged double-masking as a way to help curb the spread of COVID-19.
The 2.0 plan has five bullet points, including: keep kids in school, keep wearing masks, prevent severe illness and death, keep increasing vaccines and boosters and keep working with local leaders.
"We're breaking records every day," said Hochul as she rattled off the daily COVID-19 statistics and pointed out that while there are more cases being reported this year, there are fewer deaths than there were one year ago.
Statewide, hospitalizations are increasing and Hochul's office reports 422 COVID-related hospitalizations in Western New York.
Hochul continued to press New Yorkers to get vaccinated and boostered when eligible. "This variant breaks through a first dose, and even a second dose," she said. Beginning January 15, all SUNY and CUNY students will be required to have a booster, if eligible.
The increased number of daily cases being reported is partially attributed to the increased testing that is being completed across the state. Hochul announced test kits have been distributed statewide as part of the 'test to stay' program being implemented in school districts. More than 375-thousand test kits have been delivered to Western New York, she says.
Governor Hochul is recommending all New Yorkers begin to use a more effective KN95 mask and top it with their favorite cloth mask as a way of further preventing the spread of COVID-19.
Federal ambulance teams and additional National Guard members are headed for New York City, and western New York hospitals are getting more federal help, as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations keep rising, state officials also said Friday.
New confirmed case counts have been breaking records by the day in the state, topping 76,500 on Thursday, Hochul said at a news briefing. An average of 53,000 New Yorkers a day tested positive in the week that ended Thursday, compared to 13,000 per day two weeks earlier. Over 7,900 people with COVID-19 are hospitalized statewide, up 67% in a week.
About half those patients are in New York City, where 50 Federal Emergency Management Agency ambulance teams are due to start arriving early next month, Hochul said. Thirty federal ambulance teams were dispatched earlier to other parts of the state.
Meanwhile, Hochul is sending 50 more New York National Guard members to bolster the 50 already there to help with non-medical tasks at health care facilities. Around the state, they are grappling not only with rising caseloads, but also with staffing pressures as workers are out sick or in quarantine.
The governor began deploying National Guard members to help out at nursing homes and long-term care facilities about a month ago.
A 35-member federal medical assistance team is expected to arrive next week at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, and a roughly 20-member team at Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo, state emergency services Commissioner Jackie Bray said.