NY’s COVID cases continue to decline from Omicron highs

New York continues to emerge from a month-long crush of coronavirus cases fueled by the hyper-contagious Omicron variant, data released by the city and state on Wednesday shows.

Across the state, the positivity rate for new COVID tests continued to decline, hitting 17.37 percent, which is below the rolling seven-day average of 20.22 percent.

However, state officials logged another 58,770 new COVID cases on Tuesday, up sharply from the 48,686 positive tests that came back Monday.

Both figures are below the state’s seven-day average, which remains above 70,000 cases, indicating that the outbreak continues to slow.

The figures are new ammunition to bolster Gov. Kathy Hochul’s hope the Empire State might finally be cresting over the peak of the Omicron surge.

Much of that improvement comes from significant declines in the number of cases being reported in New York City.

The Big Apple’s seven-day average rate of new COVID cases dropped to 32,000 infections daily on Monday — a drop of more than 20 percent from last week when the average soared to an all-time high of more than 41,000 new cases daily.

The tsunami of new cases heading into the city’s hospitals also appears to be easing a tad as well, however the Health Department warns the initial tallies for recent days likely remain incomplete.

The daily average for new hospitalizations on Sunday — the most recent day for which data is available — sat at 657. That’s down nearly a third from the Omicron surge high of 923 new daily admissions on average, which was logged Jan. 5.

Upstate, where vaccination rates are lower, the picture is far less positive.

Hochul ordered all hospitals in three upstate regions on Tuesday – the Finger Lakes, Central New York and Mohawk Valley — to suspend elective surgeries because the facilities there are “overwhelmed.”

Additional reporting by Carl Campanile and Bernadette Hogan