Latimer Sees Concerning Coronavirus Numbers

WHITE PLAINS, NY — Recent increases in the number of positive cases of the new coronavirus in Westchester County are "concerning," but "not a crisis."

County Executive George Latimer, at his weekly new briefing on the pandemic, said the numbers, which had been decreasing, are "moving in a different direction."

He said the county had, as of Monday's numbers released by the state, 39,001 positive cases of the virus since the pandemic began. There have been 736,097 tests, resulting in a positivity rate of 5.3 percent over the course of the outbreak.

Of the 4,990 people tested in the county Monday, there were 63 positive tests — a 1.3 percent rate.

Latimer said the number of active cases was 868, up from 678 one week ago, up 190. He said the current number is about 300 more than it was two weeks ago.

The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19-related illnesses was 43 as of Sunday. That is up from 27 on Oct. 5.

Fatalities now total 1,462 in the county. Latimer said, over the last week, there were five deaths, where the previous weeks there were only one or two.

At the height of the outbreak, the county was reporting 30 to 40 new deaths a day.

Latimer said the concern will be more acute when a higher number of active cases becomes a higher number of hospitalization and then a higher number of fatalities.

He said that he thinks people are dropping their guard a little and becoming more lax about wearing masks and keeping socially distanced from others.

While the percentage of positive cases has been around 1 percent, with a couple of jumps to 2 percent, it's not as high as some of the hot spots in Orange and Rockland counties have been.

Latimer said he would like to see the trend flatten out, but he is concerned that, during colder weather, people will be indoors together more and the virus will be more likely to spread.

He said everyone is killing time until there is a reliable vaccine — failing that, an anti-viral treatment.

"Until that happens we have to manage it with — wait for it — testing," Latimer said.

Here is the latest map of Westchester County with the number of coronavirus infections and the number of active cases by community.

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