30°
Health officials have been conducting testing on transit employees, healthcare workers, police, fire, paramedics, and corrections officers for antibodies that would indicate they contracted COVID-19 and self resolved without showing symptoms.
Surprisingly, according to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, despite battling the virus on a daily basis, the numbers in a new survey show that essential workers are testing at a lower rate, especially downstate.
The survey found that 17.1 percent of downstate firefighters and paramedics tested positive for antibodies, ahead of transit workers (14.2 percent), healthcare workers (12.2), and the NYPD (10.5 percent).
Comparatively, according to the Department of Health, 19.9 percent of the general New York City population tested positive.
The Health Department recently polled 2,750 New York State Police troopers, 3.1 percent of whom tested positive for antibodies, while a new survey of 3,000 New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision employees found that 7.5 of officers percent tested positive.
In comparison, 12.3 percent of the state’s population who have been tested were confirmed to have the antibodies.
Cuomo stressed that the numbers show that wearing and utilizing personal protective equipment has been effective.
“The good news is that the frontline workers are testing at lower rates than the general population,” Cuomo said. “Think about that, these are the people who are in the emergency rooms, and dealing with this virus every day.
“This shows that PPE works, the masks work, the gloves work, hand sanitizing works,” he continued. “How do healthcare workers out there have a lower rate of infection than the general population? Because people don’t wear (masks) at home.”
The hospitalization rate for COVID-19 cases in New York continues to drop, as the state “is just about where we were when we started this terrible situation,” according to Cuomo.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Yonkers and receive free news updates.
