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COVID-19 Coverage

Light Impact So Far As COVID Variant BA.2 Spreads In NY

Gov. Kathy Hochul and state Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett say BA.2 is becoming the dominant strain of COVID-19 in New York, but they do not expect it to create another big wave of infections here. BA.2, a subvariant of omicron, has been gradually increasing as a percentage of positive tests statewide even as the overall number of daily new infections has plummeted in the last two months. It now accounts for 42% of new infections in New York, Bassett said Monday at a news conference with the governor. BA.2 is blamed for a recent, sharp increase of new infections in the United ...

Doctors Finding Hurdles To Using Pills To Treat COVID-19

High-risk COVID-19 patients now have new treatments they can take at home to stay out of the hospital — if doctors get the pills to them fast enough. Health systems around the country are rushing out same-day prescription deliveries. Some clinics have started testing and treating patients ...

Audit Criticizes State Over Nursing Home COVID

ALBANY — The state Comptroller’s Office this week released an audit highly critical of the state Department of Health and its response to nursing homes amid the COVID pandemic. Among the key findings were that DOH: ¯ was ill-prepared to respond to infectious diseases even before the ...

Nearly 100 Nursing Home Residents Have Died Due To COVID

Nearly 100 coronavirus-related deaths have been confirmed among residents of Chautauqua County nursing homes in the last two years of the pandemic. Information from New York state, previously criticized for not accurately representing the truth death toll, indicates that 90 residents have died due to COVID inside local nursing homes while seven have died due to the virus outside the facilities, either at hospitals or elsewhere. In Cattaraugus County, there have been 21 total COVID-related deaths. As of Monday, the following statistics regarding confirmed virus deaths inside nursing ...

NY Senate Budget Plan Includes State Gas Tax Break

SAUGERTIES, N.Y. — Mid-Hudson Valley state legislature Democrats hailed budget proposals — which include a break from the state's gas tax in the state senate — as historic, while GOP leaders slammed the entire measure as a fairy tale spending package. Both the Assembly and Senate, ...

WHO: New COVID Deaths Fell 17% Last Week, But Cases Rising

GENEVA (AP) — The number of new coronavirus deaths reported worldwide fell by 17% in the last week while COVID-19 infections rose, reversing a decline in cases that first began in January, according to the World Health Organization. In the U.N. health agency's weekly report on the ...