Long Island sees spike in COVID-19 cases

LONG ISLAND - The post-holiday COVID surge appears to have begun on Long Island.

Both Nassau and Suffolk counties broke their own record Wednesday with more than 3,800 positive COVID-19 cases combined.

The positivity level on Long Island is at 9.5% with hospitalization capacity at 77% and ICU bed capacity at roughly 80%.  With the numbers trending in the wrong direction, local leaders are reinstating pandemic triage protocols that were put in place months ago.

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 "Our EMS operators, that includes our PD medics, volunteer fire service, and emergency service, they are already experiencing elevated call volumes and we expect as numbers go up, that will continue," said Nassau County Executive Laura Curran.

The viral pandemic triage protocol would require EMS workers to perform a COVID-19 screening to determine whether or not a patient has to go to the hospital. According to Curran, it is the only way to control the spread and not overwhelm the county's hospitals.

"If there are mild symptoms and someone can convalesce at home, that makes a lot more sense than to take them to the hospital," Curran said.

But despite this new peak on Long Island, leaders at Northwell Health, the largest health system in the state, are blaming the higher number of confirmed cases on more people getting tested and a steady increase since early November.

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Northwell's Chief Medical Officer Dr. David Bertinelli says he expects to see a plateau in parts of Long Island as the vaccine rollout amps up.

"We've already offered this vaccine to the entire work staff and employees and have vaccinated about 30,000 people. That is the only way we're going to actually get ahead of this pandemic," Dr. Bertinelli said.