A customer wearing a mask shops at a store in Queens, New York, the United States, Jan. 12, 2023. (Photo by Ziyu Julian Zhu/Xinhua)
The regional rise in hospitalizations is a sign of things to come for the rest of the nation.
NEW YORK, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- New York COVID-19 hospitalizations are at their highest level in nearly a year just after a new, ultra-transmissible COVID variant XBB.1.5, known as Kraken, achieved dominance in the northeast United States, reported The Fortune magazine early this week.
Current in-state COVID-19 hospitalizations are near 4,000, the highest level since February, according to the New York State Department of Health.
"It's unlikely that the XBB.1.5 subvariant is solely responsible for the increase in hospitalizations, given recent holiday gatherings and other seasonal factors known to drive up cases each winter," said the report.
But the increase concerns experts given that the new variant was recently declared the most transmissible yet by the World Health Organization, and also due to New York's track record as a bellwether state for the rest of the country when it comes to COVID-19, it said.
It's "certainly possible" that the regional rise in hospitalizations is a sign of things to come for the rest of the nation, Michael Merson, visiting professor at New York University's School of Global Public Health, was quoted as saying. ■
