Syracuse, N.Y. -- Four Onondaga County residents died of Covid-19 in the past three days, the county reported today.
That brings the total for April to 12 Covid deaths, the same number as all of March but far less than the 55 in February.
In an interview last week with syracuse.com | The Post-Standard, County Executive Ryan McMahon attributed the lower death toll recently to the omicron variants that make up the vast majority of cases in Central New York. The region had the first outbreak in the U.S. of new omicron strains BA.2.12 and BA.2.12.1, and has had more cases per capita than the rest of the state.
“It seems that each strain gets a little bit less lethal,” McMahon said. “I’m not trying to diminish its ability to have horrible outcomes for many of our residents, but our loss of life numbers for this month have been much, much better than where they were earlier on with omicron and delta.”
Those who died since Friday, McMahon said, were a man in his 70s, and a man and woman in their 90s. A nursing home resident died, too, but nursing homes are overseen by the state, which releases no demographic data on those who died.
More county residents are hospitalized with Covid today than on any day in the past two months. Fewer are in intensive care, McMahon said in his Twitter update.
There are 112 county residents hospitalized with Covid today. That is more than double what it was at the beginning of April, but less than half of the mid-January peak of 257.
In addition, a greater share of people hospitalized now are being admitted for another reason and then testing positive for Covid in the hospital. In mid-January, those patients made up about 28% of total Covid admissions. Today, they are 39%.
The number of Covid patients in the ICU today -- five -- is the lowest in two weeks, and about half the daily average of March.
The number of new Covid cases has begun to level out in the county, although the rate remains among the highest in the state. McMahon said the county recorded 915 new cases over the three day period -- Saturday, Sunday and today. The same number last week was 1,089.