COVID-19 cases surge 23% in New York, hitting new record of 107,600 cases for the week
New coronavirus cases continued their steady climb in New York in the week that ended Saturday, rising 23% to a new record of 107,619 cases in one week.
While New York is trying to speed up its slow rollout of vaccines, it is also dealing with a surge in COVID-19 cases.
The previous week had 87,651 new cases of the virus that causes COVID.
"New York State is now in a footrace between how fast the infection rate rises and how fast we can administer vaccines," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday in a statement.
New York ranked 18th among the states where coronavirus was spreading the fastest on a per-person basis, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data showed.
In the latest week, the U.S. added 1.7 million reported cases of coronavirus, an increase of 18% from the week before. Across the country, 46 states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before.
Testing has changed around the holidays, making comparisons difficult.
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How the virus has spread in New York
Within New York, the worst weekly outbreaks on a per-person basis were in Herkimer, Cayuga and Lewis counties.
Adding the most new cases overall were some of its largest counties: Suffolk with 12,494 cases; Queens with 11,827 cases; and Brooklyn with 10,679.
Weekly case counts rose in 56 counties from the previous week. The worst increases from the prior week's pace were in Queens, Kings and Suffolk counties.
>> See how your community has fared with recent coronavirus cases
The share of New York test results that came back positive was 7.7% in the latest week, compared with 7.6% in the week before, a USA TODAY Network analysis of COVID Tracking Project data shows.
On Saturday, the rate had dropped to 6.2%, the lowest in recent days.
For some areas of the state, the rates remained stubbornly high: It was 10% in the Mohawk Valley, the most of any New York region, and 9.6 percent in the Finger Lakes.
The rates were lower elsewhere: 7.9% in the Hudson Valley and 4.4% in the Southern Tier, the lowest of any region Saturday.
In the latest week, nearly 1.4 million tests were administered in New York; a week earlier, it was 1.2 million.
New York is typically testing more than 200,000 people a day, among the most in the nation. On Saturday, 246,836 tests were administered.
Experts say it is important to look at the share of tests that come back positive, not just case counts, to get a better idea of whether the rate of new infections is changing or if differences in testing are playing a role.
The World Health Organization says places should be conducting enough tests to have fewer than 5% coming back positive.
Across New York, cases fell in six counties, with the best declines in Oneida, Sullivan and Greene counties.
In New York, 1,198 people were reported dead of COVID-19 in the week ending Saturday. In the week before that, 987 people died.
In New York, 39,471 people have died from the disease, either confirmed or suspected Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the U.S., 372,428 people have died.
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