New York led the nation in new COVID cases last week, with a 64% surge

Mike Stucka Joseph Spector
New York State Team

ALBANY — New York may have come down from record highs of COVID-19 cases after the holiday season, but infection rates are now rising faster than any state in the nation.

New coronavirus cases leaped 64% in New York in the week ending Sunday, with 67,963 new cases reported compared to 41,406 a week earlier.

The surge ranked New York first among the states where coronavirus was spreading the fastest on a per-person basis, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data showed.

The rate well surpasses the national average: The U.S. added 442,676 cases of coronavirus over the past week, an increase of 16% from the week before.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has highlighted how New York's rates have gone down from record highs during the holidays.

He said Sunday that the number of ICU patients for COVID was 877, the lowest since Dec. 6, which is a 46% decline from the post-holiday peak.

But the state's positivity rate of those tested for COVID has stayed persistently above 3% for more than a month and is starting to grow — even as vaccines become more available.

New York is far from the leader in administrating vaccines, records show: It ranked 21st among states in share of people receiving at least one shot, with nearly 30% of its residents at least partially vaccinated.

Still, New York is better than the national vaccine rate, which is about 28%, a USA TODAY analysis of CDC data showed.

In the week ending Sunday, New York reported administering another 1.3 million vaccine doses, up from about 1 million the week before. In all, New York reported it has administered nearly 8.7 million doses.

Cuomo and health officials have warned that people still need to take precautions against COVID even as more residents get vaccinated.

"The vaccine is the weapon that will win the war, and each day more New Yorkers are getting vaccinated for COVID-19," Cuomo said in a statement Sunday.

"However, the infection rate also depends on what we do, and New Yorkers should continue staying safe and protecting one another as the virus continues to spread in our state."

New York is also grappling with a rise in variants, which is another reason for concern. The state has had at least 2,700 infections in COVID variants, a review of data by the USA TODAY Network New York found.

Across the country, 34 states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before.

In New York, the biggest increases in total COVID cases has been in New York City, largely in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan.

More:Cases of variants top 2,700 in New York amid COVID vaccination push. What to know

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Still, weekly case counts rose in 48 counties from the previous week, while they fell in 13 counties, with the best declines in Nassau, Dutchess and Chautauqua counties.

In New York, 591 people were reported dead of COVID in the week ending Sunday. In the week before, 473 people had died from the virus.

New York recently surpassed the 50,000 death count from COVID, according to Johns Hopkins, behind only California, which is twice as populous.

And New York is fourth in the total number of cases, approaching 1.9 million — which ranks behind the three more populous states of California, Texas and Florida.

On Monday, President Joe Biden warned people to not let their guard down with COVID.

Biden noted that "some of the reckless behavior we've seen on television over the past few weeks means that more new cases are to come in the weeks ahead."

"With vaccines, there's hope, which is a very good thing, to state the obvious, but people are letting up on precautions, which is a very bad thing," he said.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said Monday she had a feeling of "impending doom" over another COVID surge.

Walensky said that daily infections are up 10% from a week ago in the nation, and hospitalizations are also on the rise.

"I'm asking you to just hold on a little longer, to get vaccinated when you can, so that all of those people that we all love will still be here when this pandemic ends," she said.

Includes reporting by USA TODAY staff writer Rebecca Morin.