NEW YORK — As New York faces colliding Christmastime coronavirus waves of the delta and omicron strains, Gov. Kathy Hochul intensified the urgency of her rhetoric about the threat on Thursday, warning that “people are underestimating the power of omicron.”
“This is a health care crisis, and people are going to die,” Hochul said in a news conference in Albany, describing a potentially perilous winter and urging New Yorkers to observe a mask mandate she ordered last Friday. “Please put on the mask.”
The nimble omicron variant, which was first discovered in New York two weeks ago, appears to spread through communities with alarming speed, often dodging immunity provided by infections and vaccinations. Its spread in South Africa and London, where it now appears to be the dominant strain, has been expressed in an “I”-like form in disturbing graphs.
Only 59 omicron cases had been confirmed statewide as of Thursday, according to Hochul’s office, but the true measure of its advance is believed to be far greater.
A small fraction of cases are sequenced by labs to determine their mutations, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated Wednesday that 13% of cases in New York and New Jersey could be attributed to omicron. Hochul said the statewide count of COVID hospitalizations had spiked by 70% since Thanksgiving.
As the omicron variant spreads, COVID metrics are beginning to climb rapidly across New York.
The seven-day average positivity rate in the five boroughs jumped from 2.9 percent on Monday to 3.5 percent on Wednesday.
“We’ve never seen this before in #NYC,” tweeted Dr. Jay Varma, a professor at Cornell and Mayor de Blasio’s former senior public health adviser.
In a heartburn-inducing echo of earlier stretches of the pandemic, long lines ran outside of testing sites across New York City on Thursday. Pharmacies ran low on at-home test kits. And New Yorkers worried that the virus would impact holiday plans.
Early research has indicated that the heavily mutated strain, which was first discovered in southern Africa in late November, leads to milder infections than the delta variant. But it is the speed with which omicron proliferates that has rattled health authorities.
Dr. Mary Bassett, the state health commissioner, warned that while omicron seems less virulent, on average, its tendency toward exponential spread could still create “big numbers” of severe cases in New York.
The state’s hospitals, stretched thin by a fall delta wave, appear ill-equipped to handle omicron’s relentless replication, raising the stakes for Hochul and health officials across the state.
“I’ve been focused primarily on hospital bed capacity from the beginning, even before this got bad,” Hochul, a Democrat, said. “We’re going to find ways to bring in more health care workers to supplement. It’s not a shortage of beds. It’s people to staff the beds.”
She urged New Yorkers to get tested often and to receive their shots, including booster injections, which she said may soon be folded into the definition of full vaccination. “Prepare for that,” she said.
But she added that it is crucial for New Yorkers to use face coverings given the growing scourge of breakthrough cases, and expressed frustration over upstate resistance. Several Republican-led counties have refused to enforce her mask mandate despite high case rates.
“Any state mandate of this type should come with corresponding state-led oversight and resources from the state government, not pushed down to counties,” David LeFeber, a Republican who serves as chairman of the Livingston County Board of Supervisors, said in a statement on Monday.
Livingston County would not enforce the mandate, LeFeber said. The county’s test positivity rate over the last week was 9.1% on Thursday, according to government data, while the statewide rate was 4.8%.
Hochul has said she issued the indoor mask directive, which created fines for businesses that break the rule, as an alternative to shutdowns that would damage the economy.
Her latest gloomy assessment came more than a year after vaccinations began in New York State, and 21 months after the coronavirus pandemic began. Once again, New York — an early epicenter — appeared in the crosshairs.
“That winter surge is in full force, and I believe it’s going to get even stronger and more virulent,” Hochul said. “We are in for a rough ride this winter season.”
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