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During his weekly COVID-19 briefing on Tuesday, Oct. 13 - held at his office due to Legislator David Tubiolo's positive case last week - Latimer said that "COVID numbers have been moving in a different direction," after seeing the curve flattened for several weeks.
Latimer noted that while there's been a rise in active cases and hospitalizations, things still aren't as bad as when the virus peaked in April, when there were upwards of 12,000 active cases and 1,200 people hospitalized with COVID-19.
There are currently 868 active cases, up from 562 as recently as two weeks ago. There are now 43 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Westchester, up from 27 in less than two weeks. There have also been five new virus-related deaths reported in the past six days, the same amount of fatalities in the county over the previous four weeks.
The number of new cases is the highest the county has seen since shortly after Memorial Day Weekend.
Latimer said that it was important to keep the new COVID-19 numbers in mind when compared to the peak of the virus in April. He also made note that he doesn't believe that this is a second wave of the virus, more of an aberration in the number of new cases.
"I must be candid ... But I do want to put this in perspective," Latimer said. "What we're seeing is something of a concern, but it's not a crisis. Whatever is going to happen in the days to come, we'll act off of that and make the best decisions possible.
"This is not a sign that we're back where we were in April," he continued. "If those higher case numbers turn to higher hospitalizations and more fatalities, then we have something to be concerned about."
Since the virus was first reported in Westchester seven months ago, there have now been 39,064 confirmed COVID cases in Westchester out of 741,087 tested, according to the state's Department of Health.
The overall percentage of positive results for those tested in Westchester dropped to 5.3 percent, down from 5.8 percent last week.
The new fatalities brought the total to 1,462 COVID-19-related deaths in Westchester since March.
A breakdown of total, active, and new COVID-19 cases in Westchester municipalities on Tuesday, Oct. 13, according to the county Department of Health:
- Yonkers: 8,086 (124, 48 new);
- New Rochelle: 3,442 (107, 48 new);
- Mount Vernon: 2,941 (42, 16 new);
- White Plains: 2,019 (33, 11 new);
- Port Chester: 1,382 (28, 7 new);
- Greenburgh: 1,320 (23, 11 new);
- Ossining Village: 1,160 (17, 5 new);
- Peekskill: 1,092 (20, 10 new);
- Cortlandt: 1,024 (32, 12 new);
- Yorktown: 852 (32, 10 new);
- Mount Pleasant: 6675 (28, 5 new);
- Mamaroneck Village: 515 (12, 5 new);
- Eastchester: 484 (4, 3 new);
- Sleepy Hollow: 489 (16, 4 new);
- Harrison: 487 (12, 6 new);
- Somers: 470 (15, 4 new);
- Scarsdale: 400 (8, 3 new);
- Dobbs Ferry: 359 (10, 5 new);
- Tarrytown: 336 (10, 5 new);
- Mount Kisco: 318 (6, 4 new);
- Bedford: 314 (12, 5 new);
- New Castle: 259 (9, 5 new);
- North Castle: 247 (5, 1 new);
- Rye City: 245 (9, 5 new);
- Elmsford: 220 (2)
- Croton-on-Hudson: 219 (1);
- Rye Brook: 219 (13, 7 new);
- Mamaroneck Town: 193 (2, 2 new);
- Pelham: 185 (6, 3 new);
- North Salem: 184 (21, 2 new);
- Ossining Town: 175 (6);
- Pleasantville: 166 (14, 4 new);
- Tuckahoe: 152 (4, 1 new);
- Hastings-on-Hudson: 155 (8, 1 new);
- Lewisboro: 143 (5, 3 new);
- Pelham Manor: 133 (4);
- Briarcliff Manor: 133 (4, 2 new);
- Ardsley: 114 (9, 6 new);
- Bronxville: 98 (2);
- Irvington: 98 (2, 1 new);
- Larchmont: 90, (5, 2 new);
- Buchanan: 49 (3, 2 new);
- Pound Ridge: 39 (4, 1 new).
Statewide, there were 99,070 COVID-19 tests administered yesterday, with 1,393 (1.4 percent) testing positive. There are currently 923 people hospitalized with the virus, up more than 200 from last week. There were 11 new fatalities.
Since the pandemic began, New York has administered 12,230,436 COVID-19 tests, with 476,708 testing positive. A total of 25,598 New Yorkers have died since mid-March.
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