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COVID surge: NY breaks single-day record for new COVID cases for 5th day in week

By FOX 5 NY Staff
Updated  December 23, 2021 7:54am EST
New York
FOX 5 NY

NYC adding more testing sites as COVID surge continues

New York has smashed its single-day COVID case record for the fifth time in a week with an astounding 28,924 new infections, a 30 percent jump from the record set earlier this week.

NEW YORK - New York reported its highest single-day total for new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, with 28,924 positive cases statewide.  It is the fifth record high for cases in a week.

Wednesday's numbers were up from 22,258 positive NY COVID tests the day before.  A week prior there were only 12,944 cases reported statewide. The state's positivity rate now stands at 10.66%. 

NY has passed 3,000,000 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic according to statistics released on Wednesday afternoon.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he's committed to no NYC lockdown or NYC school shutdown.

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"Adamantly I feel this: No more shutdowns. We’ve been through them," de Blasio said on Tuesday. "They were devastating. We can’t go through it again."

No decision has also been made on having crowds in Times Square for New Year’s Eve, even as Fox said it was canceling its live broadcast because of concerns about the omicron variant.

"The preference is to keep it on, it’s an important event for the city," de Blasio told MSNBC, adding that revelers would have to show vaccination proof and that officials were weighing other precautions.

New York City is ramping up COVID testing and is offering at home COVID test kits.

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Dr. Mary Bassett, the acting NY State Health Commissioner, says she and other health officials are re-examining the quarantine and isolation recommendations.

City run vaccine sites and booster sites remain in operation.  $100 booster shot bonuses are being offered in New York City through the end of the year to get people to get the third shot.

The city has never had so many people test positive in such a short period of time since testing became widely available; there's no clear picture of how many people got the virus during New York City's first surge in spring 2020.

Hospitalizations also have been increasing, though much more slowly.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has vowed to keep schools open despite the increase in cases.

"We believe that it’s critically important that our children not end up in that same situation they were for so many months, when they were so displaced from their normal environment," Hochul said Monday.

144,541 vaccine doses were administered in New York in the previous 24 hours.  There have now been 32,693,260 vaccine doses administered in NY, according to state figures.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.