FEBRUARY 2022 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 39
COVID-19 ROUNDUP
LATEST PANDEMIC HEADLINES
80% OF METRO NYERS SAY
GOV’T FAILING IN COVID
TESTING, POLL REVEALS
Eighty percent of New Yorkers living
in the metro area say the government
should be doing more to make Covid
testing widely available and has failed
in the effort thus far, results from a new
poll reveal.
Mount Sinai South Nassau’s most recent
Truth in Medicine Poll, sponsored by
Bethpage Credit Union, surveyed metro
New York residents about their opinions
on the pandemic. It revealed that 57 percent
blame the federal government for a
lack of readily available testing, while 15
percent blame the state government. The
Oceanside hospital, which releases poll
data on different medical topics at least
once a year, noted that the answers were
collected during the first week of January
2022, before the U.S. government
made four test kits available for free to
each American household through the
postal service.
“The lack of available testing has been an
Achilles’ heel of the Covid-19 response
since day one of the pandemic,” said Dr.
Adhi Sharma, president of Mount Sinai
South Nassau, recalling the pandemic’s
early days when tests were tightly controlled
and results would take up to two
weeks. “More testing enables those who
suspect they may have been exposed to
get information, stay home if they have a
positive result, and help stop the spread
to others.”
-BB
HOCHUL TO BLAKEMAN:
COUNTIES “HAVE TO FOLLOW
STATE LAW” ON MASKS
Gov. Kathy Hochul stood firmly by her
Covid-19 mask mandate on Jan. 7, adding
that counties do not have the authority
to override the state law, a day after
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman
set his own executive orders defying
mask requirements.
Specifically, Blakeman signed an order
stating that school boards could decide
whether or not their district requires
mask wearing. The order is in opposition
to New York State’s Public Health
Law 206 that requires counties to enforce
masking regulations in schools and
other settings.
“Those who underestimate me do so at
their own peril, including the county
executive of Nassau County,” Hochul responded
to a question from reporters during
her Covid-19 briefing on Jan. 7. “I have
the law of the state of New York behind
me, and I will always exercise my authority
and obligation to protect the health
of the people of this state … Municipalities,
such as counties, are creatures of the
state. They have to follow state law.”
Hochul added that schools are regulated
by the State Education Department,
whose commissioner, Betty A. Rosa, issued
a statement on Jan. 6 strongly supporting
the mask mandate in schools
and stating that counties must enforce
that law.
-BB
U.S. DISTRIBUTED 400M
FREE N95 MASKS AT CVS,
WALGREENS IN COVID FIGHT
The U.S. government has made 400
million nonsurgical N95 masks from
its strategic national stockpile available
for free to the public since January, a
White House official said, as the Biden
administration tries to curb the Covid-19
pandemic.
Snug-fitting N95 face masks, socalled
because they filter at least
95% of particulate matter from the
air, were shipped to pharmacies and
community health centers in late January,
the official said, and will be available
for pickup by early February.
The U.S. government is leveraging the
“federal retail pharmacy program” it
used for vaccines, the White House said,
as well as federally funded health clinics
that serve minority groups hit hard by
Covid infections and deaths.
Retail chain CVS, which has nearly 10,000
U.S. pharmacy locations including within
Target stores, and Walgreens, which has
over 9,000 stores, planned to distribute
free masks, company spokespeople said.
The move comes after President Joe
Biden and his team faced criticism for
not doing enough to foster masking or
bolster testing as the Omicron variant
rages across the country, and hospitalizations
hit a new record.
The administration also made free rapid
home tests available via a website that
launched officially on Jan. 19.
-Reuters
U.S. SETS GLOBAL RECORD
WITH NEARLY 1M COVID-19
CASES IN A DAY
The United States reported more than
1 million new Covid-19 cases on Jan. 4,
the highest daily tally of any country in
the world and nearly double the previous
U.S. peak set a week prior amid the
spread of the Omicron variant.
The 1,082,549 new infections documented
included some cases tallied on
the weekend, when many states do not
report. The average number of U.S. Covid–
19 deaths has remained fairly steady
throughout December and into early
January at about 1,300 a day, according
to a Reuters tally, though deaths
typically lag behind case numbers and
hospitalizations.
Omicron appears to be far more easily
transmitted than previous iterations
of the virus. The new variant was estimated
to account for 95.4% of cases
identified in the United States as of Jan.
1, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) said on Tuesday.
The World Health Organization said
that evidence suggested Omicron is
causing less severe illness. Nevertheless,
public health officials have warned
that the sheer volume of Omicron
cases threatens to overwhelm hospitals,
some of which are already struggling
to handle Covid–19 patients,
primarily among the unvaccinated.
-Reuters
PRESS HEALTH
A woman receives protective face masks in New York on May 15, 2020. (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo)
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