Empire State Today

New York finds itself at 1728 deaths per million making it 50th in the country when it comes to COVID-related deaths, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

The project found that when it comes to COVID-19 data, people have been looking at decontextualized data, which is causing hysteria like children staying out of school and businesses shutting down.  

New York’s deaths and hospitalizations have not followed the same path as case increases and, instead, the state has the highest number of people in hospitals.

“The highest hospitalizations recorded, second highest death rate, and 46th highest unemployment. Yet somehow, New York continues to be held up as a model for the rest of the country, rather than a cautionary tale,” the commentary states, “with governor Cuomo initiating one of largest seroprevalence study, something which ought to have provided a tool to help us work our way out of the pandemic. Instead though, New York has been held up as a model for how we can stay IN the pandemic forever, or at least as long as needed. ”

Since Sept. 15, there has been a significant increase in testing for COVID-19 at 55 percent, which has also led to an increase in positive cases, leading many to assume the country is heading into a third wave of infections and deaths. 

Emily Burns with The Pragmatist writes that it’s important to put the new numbers into context so that people will make wise decisions regarding what to do about the pandemic. She writes that in May, cases were tracked at nearly the same as hospitalizations. She notes that deaths and hospitalizations are more reliable data when tracking than cases are. 

With COVID-19 testing up 70 percent since the second wave, Burns points out that the surge in testing is responsible for the increased number of new cases seen across the nation, not an increased infection rate many have been led to believe.