Westchester County Records Over 900 New Coronavirus Cases, Putnam Adds Nearly 100

While Westchester County recorded over 900 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, the active caseload is beginning to see a slight decline despite data resembling what was reported last spring.

Cases increased by 923, bringing the total number of positive cases to 86,646 since the start of the pandemic. There are now 11,470 active cases, state data shows, a decrease of 96 over the previous day.

“We have a long way to go,” County Executive George Latimer said during his Thursday briefing. “We hope the flattening is a good sign.”

The county’s daily positivity rate is 7.29 percent, with 12,663 tests administered on Tuesday. Overall, there have been over 1.65 million COVID tests dispensed in Westchester since March.

The county reported five more deaths, bringing the death toll from COVID-19-related fatalities to 1,824 since March. This week 35 people have died from the virus, with 149 overall fatalities since the start of the new year.

“Those numbers are not insignificant,” Latimer said. “That is the nature of COVID; it strikes in ways that isn’t easily predictable and people who look like they might be able to fight it off don’t, and some people who look like they might succumb to it manage to successfully fight it off and it really comes to down to protecting people from getting it in the first place.”

As of Thursday, there are 567 virus patients in Westchester hospitals, an increase of 54 over a four-day span. Latimer said the current number of hospitalizations is about half of what the peak rate was last spring.

Putnam County’s total caseload has reached 6,670, with 94 additional positive cases recorded on Thursday. The county’s daily positivity rate is 7.54 percent, with 1,246 tests administered Tuesday, state data shows.

The county currently has 1,234 active cases.

There have been 75 coronavirus-related deaths in Putnam since the start of the pandemic. There were no new deaths reported on Thursday.

Statewide there were 13,886 new positive cases on Thursday, state data shows. The daily positivity rate is 6.18 percent.

The state recorded 174 additional COVID-19-related fatalities, bringing the death toll to 33,594 since March.

Statewide hospitalizations stand at 9,055, a decrease of 218 over the previous day. Across New York there have been 1,285,337 positive coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, according to the state tracker.

Here are the latest updates on Jan. 22

As of Wednesday, Westchester County-run facilities have vaccinated 10,874 individuals – 8,667 at the County Center and 2,207 at the county health clinic in White Plains. Various pharmacies throughout Westchester are also administering the immunization.

Latimer indicated that while the County Center is an ideal location to host a distribution site, the state needs to approve more areas throughout the county to expedite to immunization process. He suggested sites open in Yonkers, Peekskill or Yorktown, Mount Kisco, New Rochelle and Mount Vernon.

“We all recognize that we need additional centers like the County Center in different parts of the county if we’re going to truly vaccinate the vast majority of Westchester residents,” Latimer said. “We need to be able to be able to get the vaccine out in as close to a location as people to where they live.”

He stressed the more accessible the vaccine becomes the more likely people are to get it.

Yorktown Supervisor Matt Slater is also calling on state officials to open a distribution site in northern Westchester to ease the burden on seniors who need to travel to White Plains to get vaccinated. 

In a letter to state officials, Slater and Town Clerk Diana Quast maintained the town has several senior living facilities, nursing homes, veteran halls, pharmacists, firehouses, ambulance corps and town buildings that can be utilized to handle residents eligible to receive the vaccine. Two suggested locations are the Albert Capellini Community and Cultural Center gym and the Jefferson Village Senior Community Room.

They noted both locations were used as polling places during elections and were easily accessible for seniors with no stairs and ample parking.

“We are prepared to facilitate any number of locations within our community to fulfill the needs and get as many people vaccinated as possible,” Slater and Quast stated in the Jan. 15 letter. “Establishing a vaccine distribution center within centrally located Yorktown will eliminate the need for many seniors and elderly to find ways to travel in order to be vaccinated.”

Putnam County currently has two distribution sites – one at the Carmel Friendship Center and the other at the Philipstown Recreation Center. However, both locations have a limited supply of the vaccine. 

As of Thursday, 975,958 individuals statewide have received the first dose of the vaccine, with 108,573 getting the second dose. However, Gov. Andrew Cuomo suggested the state would officially be out of vaccines today due to a shortage of supply delivered by the federal government. 

“We are racing to administer the vaccine as quickly as possible while doing everything we can to reduce the infection rate,” Cuomo said. “The State administered 96,000 shots in the last 24 hours, and we have the operational capacity to do even more – but we need more doses from the federal government because the real problem continues to be that the demand outpaces supply.” 

Cuomo has said he’s hopeful the new administration will turn things around and provide a more adequate supply of the vaccine to New York. 

Click HERE to see if you’re eligible to receive the vaccine. 

Westchester Active Coronavirus Cases by Municipality 

Here are the active cases by municipality in Westchester as of Thursday. With a lag between the total number of cases confirmed by the state and the tally of cases by town, the total number of municipal cases might be slightly different than what the county’s active cases reflects.

• Ardsley – 42
• Bedford – 170
• Briarcliff Manor – 77
• Bronxville – 68
• Buchanan – 40
• Cortlandt – 419
• Croton-on-Hudson – 64
• Dobbs Ferry – 91
• Eastchester – 212
• Elmsford – 58
• Greenburgh – 453
• Harrison – 243
• Hastings-on-Hudson – 76
• Irvington – 54
• Larchmont – 57
• Lewisboro – 63
• Mamaroneck Town – 125
• Mamaroneck Village – 252
• Mount Kisco – 122
• Mount Pleasant – 226
• Mount Vernon – 814
• New Castle – 145
• New Rochelle – 932
• North Castle – 98
• North Salem – 52
• Ossining Town – 54
• Ossining Village – 455
• Peekskill – 419
• Pelham – 82
• Pelham Manor – 59
• Pleasantville – 76
• Port Chester – 419
• Pound Ridge – 23
• Rye Brook – 91
• Rye City – 154
• Scarsdale – 97
• Sleepy Hollow – 199
• Somers – 216
• Tarrytown – 204
• Tuckahoe – 89
• White Plains – 617
• Yonkers – 2,947
• Yorktown – 469