Westchester County Executive George Latimer delivered in his weekly address, an update on the number of COVID cases to residents of the county. Latimer, as he has done for the past three years, calmly presented the data and the facts, which showed the following:
9 COVID Deaths in Westchester last week. In comparison, Westchester had 47 deaths for same period in 2022 and 38 deaths in 2021.
3,028 active cases, compared to 36,345 in 2022 and 10,238 in 2021.
263 Hospitalizations in 2023, compared to 627 in 2022 and 489 in 2021.
Latimer’s message was that while COVID cases, hospitizations and deaths are rising they are no where near the numbers of 2022 and 2021.Vaccinations began in 2021.
Hospital beds filled with COVID cases are also down compared to 2022 and 2021. Currently, only 9.7% of total capacity of 2,700 hospital beds in Westchester are full with COVID patients. That is compared to 44% of all beds with COVID patients in 2020.
“More Westchestser residents are vaccinated, with an estimated 85%. We made no vaccinaton mandate in Westchester. This was the residents of Westchester making an educated decision to get vaccinated,” said Latimer. “85% vaccination rate has gotten us a lower number of cases and a lower number of hospitalizations and deaths,” said Latimer.
“COVID is going to be with us, it will not be eradicated. But we have not reached anything like the point of going back to 2022 and 2021 numbers. This is not the centralzing force of our society and we have tried to strike that balance in Westchester County.”
A total of 2,943 Westchester residents have died since the pandemic began in 2020.
