COMMON QUESTIONS ON COVID DATA

1. Does Orange County have an age breakdown of cases?

 Yes, the County constructs the breakdown from State data that we are given.   These data are typically updated every week at the County COVID-19 data dashboard above.

2. How many of Orange County’s cases are vaccinated vs unvaccinated?

As the state is working on a centralized reporting dashboard for this metric, currently we receive data that is reported to us during communicable disease investigation and contact tracing efforts, hence it is not a complete data set. For the data available to us, the newly diagnosed cases are overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated population. COVID-19 hospitalization and death are also confirmed predominantly among unvaccinated residents.

In the meantime, data that is known states that vaccination reduces the chances of hospitalization and death by over 10x.

3. What percent of the pediatric cases are “serious” or “hospitalized”?

Each day, Orange County’s four hospitals (Bon Secours in Port Jervis, St. Anthony's Community Hospital in Warwick, Garnett in Middletown, and Montefiore St. Luke’s Cornwall in Newburgh) report total “in-house” COVID cases to the County. Those hospitals continue to see pediatric COVID-19 cases in their emergency departments and their urgent care facilities, however they generally transport pediatric patients in critical condition to pediatric ICUs in facilities outside of Orange County.  As a result, that data is harder to come by as pediatric patients are sent to hospitals outside of Orange County that do not report their statistics to Orange County. That data is one of the things we would like to see NYS provide when they increase their data sharing under Governor Hochul. 

Moreover, due to the potential long term complications of COVID-19, "long haul cases", it is important to consider other factors, not just hospitalization and death rates, and remember that just because someone no longer has active infection, long-haul symptoms may persist. A dramatic increase in cases for people under 18 is being reported here in Orange County as well as across the state, and the nation.

That rise in cases can be attributed to at least two factors: First, young people are vaccinated at a much lower rate, and those under 12 do not yet qualify. Second, more virulent variants, such as Delta, are continuing to emerge as the overall population vaccination rates remain lower than the minimum threshold necessary for herd immunity. Despite that fact, individuals continue to meet in mass in various settings such as schools, places of work and worship, and social events for a prolonged period of time.