ALBANY (WCBS 880) — New York State has at least one confirmed case of the South African coronavirus variant, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday.
During a virtual press conference, the governor said the patient is being hospitalized in New York City and was transferred to the hospital from Connecticut.
“There is a patient in New York City who has tested positive for the South African variant. The South African variant is the variant that they’re watching most closely,” Cuomo said. “They worry about how lethal it is and how it relates to the vaccine.”
The governor stressed that the patient is not a New York resident and notes that at this time, this is no evident of further spread pertaining to this case.
The announcement came as the governor confirmed the overall statewide positivity had fallen to 3.53%.
“Good news overall… the post-holiday increase has continued to decrease. Congratulations to New Yorkers – we went from 7.9% to 3.7%. That is very good news,” Cuomo said.
Still, New York State is not out of the woods yet and Cuomo notes that the Mid-Hudson region and Long Island still have high COVID positivity rates that need to come down.
Cuomo says the best way to ensure that we stop the spread of the virus is by getting everyone vaccinated.
Currently, New York has given out 3,206, 914 doses of the vaccine with 2,199,688 being first doses and 1,007,226 being second doses.
“Over 1 million New York now have received doses 1 and 2, which is great news,” Cuomo said.
Still, over 10 million New Yorkers are now eligible to get their shot, and supply remains to be a large issue.
“There are more people eligible nationwide than there are doses available,” Cuomo said.
The federal government plans to send New York State 300,000 doses of the vaccine every week and Cuomo is expecting it will continue to be difficult to locate a vaccination appointment into the spring.
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