ALBANY, N.Y. — Governor Andrew Cuomo says three additional cases of a new, more contagious variant of the coronavirus have been identified in New York, including one on Long Island.
Two of the cases are connected to the initial discovery of the U.K. variant identified in Saratoga Springs, which was announced Monday.
The third case involving a 64-year-old man from Massapequa appears unrelated to the exposures in upstate New York. The Long Island man had first tested positive for the virus Dec. 27.
State health officials were working with contact tracers in Nassau County to identify additional potential exposures.
As for Western New York, our COVID-19 positivity rate dropped down to 8.45 percent on Friday, a decrease from 8.61 percent on Thursday. Mohawk Valley (10.5 percent) and the Finger Lakes (9.83 percent) both continue to report the highest percent positive rates in the state.
At this time, 513 Western New Yorkers are hospitalized in the region, which equates to .04 percent of the area's population.
On a conference call with reporters Saturday morning, the governor explained why certain parts of the state, including Erie County, haven't dropped out of the Orange Zone.
"They may not be going up anymore or they may be flat or they may be ticking down but they aren't ticking down below the level that would drop an area to the next zone," Cuomo said.
The governor also said there was a record high number of 258,031 COVID tests reported across the state Friday.
"The good news — a new testing record has been set. The bad news — three more cases of the UK COVID strain have been found," Cuomo said. "If we are to beat COVID once and for all, we need to win the footrace between how fast the infection rate rises and how fast vaccinations are administered. The UK strain's Usain Bolt-like infection rate has certainly made that job all the more difficult, especially since the federal government has refused to mandate testing for international travelers, but New York is forging ahead nonetheless. We have worked tirelessly to expand hospital capacity and are doing everything we can to accelerate the distribution of the vaccine. What we all need to do now is remember that our actions will determine what happens next — so stay smart, wear a mask and avoid gatherings."