WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) – It appears the surge in new COVID cases in northern New York peaked in the first half of January.
The trend is visible in all three counties, but clearest in Jefferson County.
And officials are quick to emphasize – it doesn’t mean COVID is over.
“We’re trending in the right direction,” said Jefferson County administrator Robert Hagemann.
“We’re not at a point to be comfortable and say things are really better.”
7 News reviewed reports of new cases for Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties, for each Tuesday since mid-December. We reviewed the last three weeks’ worth of Tuesday numbers from Lewis County.
Jefferson County peaked with new cases during the first two weeks of January, and then quickly dropped off.
Hagemann cautioned that the ready availability of home testing is affecting the numbers.
“That number isn’t going down. That number is going up, which has to do with the availability of testing equipment,” he said.
Oddly, at the same time the number of new cases dropped, the number of people hospitalized with COVID in Jefferson County went up.
One possible explanation: doctors say the number of “COVID hospitalizations” includes people who were admitted to the hospital for other reasons – a heart attack, a broken leg – and had no symptoms of COVID but tested positive. The explanation goes – more people are being admitted who are asymptomatic.
The trend toward fewer new cases is less pronounced in St. Lawrence and Lewis counties, but both showed decreases from their January peaks.
Hagemann points out that wastewater testing in Jefferson County continues to show high levels of the virus, “so we know it’s still among us.”
On Tuesday, Governor Kathy Hochul said the state had 90,000 cases on January 7, and that number has dropped (as of February 1) to 7,119 cases.
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