McMahon says increased CNY cases resulting from COVID-19 BA.2 substrain

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The “more contagious” substrain of BA.2 — called BA.2.12 — is what’s causing many of the recent COVID-19 cases in the Central New York region.

The Wadsworth Center in Albany has made that determination, Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon said to open his remarks at his latest COVID-19 briefing held Wednesday afternoon at the Oncenter.

McMahon and Dr. Indu Gupta, Onondaga County Health Commissioner, were told about the new substrain in a phone conversation with New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett.

“This makes a lot of sense when you look at Central New York being really the first community in New York State, and really the country to some degree, that was impacted by this. BA2 was more 40 percent more contagious than the original omicron. The BA2.12 is even more contagious than that,” McMahon said.

Heading into the upcoming holiday weekend, the county executive is reminding the public about the vaccines and treatments available for COVID.

“If you are positive … we have therapeutics that are highly effective against [the] omicron [strain of COVID-19],” McMahon said.

The county executive also noted that even though the vaccine has been “less effective with preventing transmission” with each variant, it is still “highly effective” in preventing hospital stays and treatment in a hospital’s intensive-care unit (ICU).

McMahon noted that nearly 98,000 Onondaga County residents aged 16-and-over who are eligible for the COVID-19 booster shot have yet to receive that shot.

“Since then, there’s been approvals for a second booster shot for [the] 50-plus [population] and certain individuals who are immunocompromised. So, certainly, this is one of the tools,” he added.

More than 70 percent of Onondaga County residents have completed their COVID-19 vaccination series of doses, McMahon said.

“It’s about empowering people with the information and with the [prevention] tools, and that’s what we’re doing,” he said.

Latest county COVID-19 data

McMahon reported 267 new cases via labs, plus 219 positive at-home tests compiled over the last two days for a total of 486.

In addition, 74 people are currently hospitalized with COVID, including seven in an ICU.

“That’s been one of the positive numbers over the last two or three weeks, even though we’ve seen hospitalizations in April jump from where they were at the end of March,” said McMahon. “The ICU numbers have actually stabilized. Hopefully, that’s a good trend. We’ll see.”

He also reported two additional deaths, bringing the Onondaga County COVID-19 death toll to 1,097 since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.