Syracuse, N.Y. -- The deadly pace of the Covid-19 pandemic has picked up in Onondaga County, with 10 deaths combined between Wednesday and today.
That’s the highest total of two consecutive days in almost a year. Ten people died on Jan. 29 and 30 of 2021.
The county has seen a recent rise in deaths, with 20 over the past week and 54 this month. They follow by several weeks the steep rise in cases that began over the holidays due to the highly contagious omicron variant. Death has always been a lagging indicator; it generally takes someone several weeks after being infected before dying.
County Executive Ryan McMahon has said that the percentage of people who’ve died during the omicron surge is lower that that of delta, but the surge in cases over the past month has shown that even a smaller percentage of a bigger number is still deadly.
The pandemic death toll in the county now stands at 992.
McMahon said on Twitter today that hospitalizations dropped slightly, from 257 Wednesday to 247 today. Of those, 44 are in intensive care.
The drop this week in newly confirmed cases offers hope that fewer people will be hospitalized or die in the next several weeks. The county has confirmed 7,316 cases in the past week, a 37% drop from the previous week.
Those numbers don’t include people who tested positive with at-home tests and did not report the results to the county health department.
Cases remain much higher than a month ago: Just under 2,100 cases were confirmed Dec. 15 to 20.