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WPCNR QUARTERLY STATE OF LIFE SERIES # 6. News & Comment  By John F. Bailey. March 29, 2023:

It’s  coming.

Time to be a kid again

Ball is coming back

This year it really is a brand new ball game.

Pitch Clocks. Batter clocks. Big Bases. No overshifting — and we do not know a lot of the nuances of these new rules. Limiting throws to first. The 10th inning Tiebreaker which I hate.

What if a center moves past straightaway center– is that “offside?” Or after the ball is pitched can the outfielders take off into gaps in anticipation of the direction  the batter is going to  hit to? It may absolutely help outfield defenders. Is a ball called by the umpire, or does the centerfielder have to spend time in a penalty box for an inning and they have to play two outfielders? I shouldn’t have suggested I hope Joe Torre does not see this column!

I have not seen any telecasts of “Exhibition Games” from Florida for the Bombers train and the Metropolitans train, nor heard any radio broadcasts from Florida.

Baseball is the worst sold, worst promoted professional sport. The owners do not promote to young fans. They rely on websites and all sports radio to get their news out. Radio telecasts of Exhibition games on a lazy cold miserable March are like an oasis or were. I guess John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman did some games but at odd times of games. When they break up that play-by-play team it will be a sad day because Waldman is by far the best color commentary on baseball, never gives you cliches like the other announcers.

Look for sponsors on every pitch soon on the radio. “The payoff pitch is brought to you by Republic Bank.” The commercializing of the Yankee radio broadcasts is tough to take. I do not understand how Sterling and Waldman stand it. Sterling is now an easy listening announcer similar to the broadcasters when I was growing Harry Kalas, By Saam, Bob

I loved Exhibition games because it did not matter who won the game. It was for fun for the fans.

But it is a tense time. Baseball is so competitive. Every player is competing and hoping they do not get hurt. The pressure is intense.

The big worry is getting injured and that has happened a lot this spring.

However starting the baseball season on March 31 in the north for the most part is crazy. MLB does a March opener to play nothing but single games. There no more 2 for the price of one doubleheaders scheduled. And when the make-up games come they do it as a day night separate admission doubleheader or the awful twilight-nighter that gets you home at midnight from the Bronx.

You will be playing possibly in snow at the Yankee opener or Met opener. I remember getting snowed out on April 6 in the 1990s when I went to an opener.

And cold means pulled muscles more injuries. Or worse sore arms. Teams do not hit their stride until June when it starts getting really warm.

Now we have very expanded playoffs, getting more like the NBA, NHL and NFL every year.

The trouble is baseball has no form.  The best team over a season can get taken out when three pitchers get hot in a short series.

As the late Commissioner Fay Vincent said baseball is a game that breaks your heart.

Some other observations, I think the games will be just as slow as they ever have due to the pitching changes.

I think strategies have to be invented to play the tie breaker better. Defend third base is the key to snuff the push to hit the ball to right. that gets the runner to third to score on an out. Of course few hitters can hit  specifically to an area.

The larger bases may help stealing but pitchouts will be key after the your throws over twice. You have go  after the first throw over, so they will be ready for that, too.

The stealing will not be as successful as you think. Hit run? Hitters strike out too much to risk a baserunner getting caught by a throw down. Incidently, does the catcher get to throw down to first at will, no limit? Really baseball’s explanations of these rules has been amateurish. They should offer a Free rules guide to fans.

Pitching management is the key. Bullpens are the name of the game now.

No, I no longer love the game. But you never forget your first love. There is nothing like being in the ballpark. The shadows, the sun, the scoreboards. The beer.

As Bogie once said, “It’s my game. A hot dog at the game beats roast beef at The Ritz.”

The State of Ball is always on my mind.

I married Brenda Starr because she sat through a doubleheader (scheduled) in 1970 when the Mets were playing the Big Red Machine. It had rained most of the morning. I said we’ll go to the game any. We go. We pay the usual fortune to park..go up to front row seats in the upper deck just off first. There if 6 inches of water under our seats.

I decide well it’s still raining, so we left and I drove back to Jersey, but a strange force drew me to the radio and I said let’s just see…and Bob Murphy is saying…”Well they are taking the tarp off the field and we’ll be playing.”

I turned the car around and drove us back to Shea. Paid to park again.  Got in our seats by the time it started.

The Mets split two 1-run games.

I figured that I would never meet another woman who would ever do that.

So here is my poem “Opening Day” I wrote many years ago for all you fans out there

OPENING DAY is better than Christmas Day,
When you look out  and know they’ll play,
Dreary gray or brilliant spring sunray
Opening Day means The Big Show is back today.

Decades past, Opening Day for fanatics starved,
Eager for  sharp crack of ash on horsehide carved;
Pennants snapping in northwest winds
Top ramparts of inviting walls arches  and sculpted friezes wistfully escarped. 

Fans lucky to get away with ducats
Marvel at flannels sharp whites pristine,
To play in the warm zephyrs in NY blazened caps,
Dashing specks of white warmup on the greenest green.

Motor cars pant in  traffic jams on the Deegan,
Down Yawkey Way, on 35th and Shields or Waveland’s jam.
The first glimpse of storied Park,
The place where ball is played, where ghosts of Ted, Babe, Duke
Mel, Spahnie, Whitey, Mickey, Willie, Yaz, Minnie and Sandy lark.

Pay a fortune to park, pass stogie smoking old men
at the same gates for a hundred years,

Now out into the street 

You go, aroma of roasting chestnuts, pungent cigars sweet,

Cries of “scorecard heah” “programs,heah” shout out, neath light towers to heaven.

Fans in cap and uniform, little boys and girls gawk in awe hoping to make the Anthem
Never seeing such sheer walls, topped with the legend “GameToday 1:30 PM.”

Clutching slim cardboard tix to Section 14 Upper Deck up to the turnstiles
Festooned with souvenirs more dear as diamonds, beyond, the lure of endless aisles.

Into  press of crowd, grizzled usher,

RIPS YOUR TICKET.
Turnstile turns, clicks, and into the cathedral of ball you go
Into the rotunda greeted with magic signs dazzling the senses —
UPPER LEVELS SECTIONS 1 to 39, 2 to 40

Hawkers shout –Voices of Flatbush — colorful books in hand

“Yeabook heah,” “Dodger Yearbook here,” “Hot dog, heah,”
Assail  ears! Up ramps you climb to the sign “NEXT HOMESTAND”

Walking the catwalk,sliver of blue is first look of the magic sphere
Into the sunlight splaying the vast rake of the mighty stand.

Below are baseball knights of the diamond in white hues
Cavorting, snapping throws across immaculate red clay
As majestic fungo bats — CRACK! send white spheres soaring to filling bleachers a mile away,
Bunting flutter from the deck rails red, white and true blues.

Old Glory furls on  highest pole in centerfield
Colorful signage deliver the manly flavor of the only real game,
GILLETTE To Look Sharp, The Red Sox use Lifeboy, Schaefer It’s A Hit
Hey, Neighbor Have a Gansett, White Owl Cigars, Hit Sign Win Suit

From old friendly walls, to Gladys Gooding on the organ
Comfy old green scoreboard display
Today’s games in the bigs BETTER THAN CNN
CHI CLE BOS DET, CHI STL, NY WAS make you king for a day.
Two Bits for a scorecard, usher wipes your seat, ballpark fills your heart.

Penciling lineup 42 2B, 1 SS, 14 1B, 4 CF, 39 C, 6 RF, 23 LF 19 3B 36 P

Smell of beer, peanuts and pretzels.

Nippy air, warm rays sink into face feels nice,

Starters wheel,deal, kicking high on sidelines fueling expectancy

Men in blue, arms folded solemnly conduct the home plate regimen
Casey, Ralph , Walter, Joe,Sparky exchange lineup cards and knowing
Ground rules by heart, go over them for ritual’s sake.
Bob Shepard “The Voice of God” entones “Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Welcome to Yankee Stadium.”

“Please rise for the playing of our national anthem,”
Nancy Faust at organ note by note renders baseball’s theme song
Rising on the breeze, uniting do-rag and ball cap,
Fedora, ponytail and bouffant in the spirit of the great game.

Grass is never greener on opening days
Strikes are louder, long drives electrify alleys
Beers with whiter than white high creamy heads, Taste crisp cold mellow best brew you drink all year

Smashes laser through short in the gap in raucous rallies

Magicians without wands start 6-4-3s, (if you’re scoring at home)

Backhand sure hits losing their caps

“Oh what a play”s crackle on WGN with “CUBS WIN!”‘S

Jack and Mel, Vince, Red, Curt and Murph , Gussie, Marty, John and Suzyn , Ernie, The Gunner, are back at mikes turning mundane days

Into joy with a ninth inning elixir and “happy recaps”

Thunderous ROARS AWARD the 2-out winner again creating big kids’ grins.

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WPCNR QUARTERLY STATE OF LIFE SERIES # 4. News & Comment  By John F. Bailey. March 27, 2023:

I am writing this after the Friday White Plains Week report.

When I finished that report and was having cocktail hour with Brenda Starr, she mentioned a covid article on page 2 of the  morning New York Times how the paper are changing the way they report the numbers on covid.

Their reason,  I quote:

“The New York Times is ending its Covid data gathering operation. The Times will continue to publish its Covid tracking pages for the United States, only now they will be based on the latest information available from the federal government, not The Times’s data set.”

The Times remarks they will concentrate on hospitalizations, deaths from the virus, but  will update them weekly, not daily. The Times also states “the data from state and local sources is reported less frequently and less reliably. The comprehensive, real-time reporting that the Times hjas prioritized is no longer possible.”

I applaud this effort to concentrate on hospitalizations to gauge the  ongoing impact of this disease.

Hospitalizations have been played down in information in Westchester County and the Mud-Hudson region.  And unless you have the patience of a season dataset analyst using the New York State Department of Health daily record of hospitalizations that shows what hospitals are getting hit with hospitalizations, you do not get a true picture of the chilling amount of persons being hospitalized for covid the last 2 and 1/2  months

White Plains Hospital Medical Center in the last 3 weeks back to March 1 shows that since march is a go-to place for many covid sufferers 58% of admissions to White Plains hospital beds are for Covid.    Through the 21st of March there were 172 persons admitted to White Plains Hospital and 102 were being treated for covid. These were not Emergency Room walk-ins and walkouts after treatment . Other hospitals around Westchester are not experiencing this consistent stream of Covid traffic.

The Times decision to drill deeper into hospitalizations around counties and their hospitals is a good one.

However when this new policy of once a week data desemination from the Center for Disease Control which has declared ambiguous messages in the past, and now we are going to get less of it from the CDC? How does that improve matters?

The government data mills grind out economic indicators weekly. One week it is up and one week they are down and the government, Wall Street, consumers moan. Politicians claim we must do something.

Meanwhile as the Times observes in Covid there is a deterioration of time on-the-money data.

When facts fail to be considered important by bureaucrats of large agencies, there is a tendency to dilute the value of facts.

The Times is troubled by this deterioration of quality timely Covid data. So is the noted epidemiologist, Dr. Katelyn Jetelina whose news letter has opened my eyes to a lot of not is not being interelated when the should be.

I have long decried Westchester County suspending the county community by community daily infections map When they did that about 6 months it was a real loss because the media lost a measuring tool that at the time it was suspended was showing all communities in county with daily new cases of the disease. We had that and now we don’t

The evil that creates situations is the tendency to portray matters in a positive manner, particularly if you are governing them. Happy economy, happy recreation, there’s no security problems –those positives keep the people from panicking or being  conservative in their contributions to society: keeping the economy going by spending comes to mind. Covid killed us for 3 years. Now we may be letting it back in by not paying attention enough to what it is doing.

The hospitalizations data for the facilities in Westchester New York City, Nassau and Suffolk and the Mid-Hudson region  is very revealing.

On March 21, the 7 counties in the Mid Hudson Region was 104 in one day which is 3,126 possible cases hospitalized in a month from now.

What is needed is knowledge on how hospital staffs are being impacted. Are nurses leaving in droves. Are doctors retiring. Is there a shortage of medicine to treat covid? The people in our 7 counties in the Hudson region are getting sick with covid. How are the logistics of treating holding up and of course who is getting it.

School reporting on their positive covid cases is a must. Schools must be more candid on their illness management and extend of it. Last year White Plains Hospital had 25% of students, teachers, administrations  come down with covid. We have no idea of that now.

That is just making it easy to hide, if you want to hide, how the schools, businesses and the people in those venues what the covid situation and hoping it all blow over.

Today the state of evil is willfully ignoring reality.

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State of the City

WPCNR QUARTERLY STATE OF LIFE SERIES # 2: STATE OF THE CITY . News & Comment by John F. Bailey. March 25, 2023:

The times they are-a-changin’ in White Plains New York USA.

They are always changing.

White Plains has changed every 50 years.

From the sleepy grand boulevards with elegant large single family houses the first 10 years of the twentieth century to tearing down of those homes and turning them into business buildings, movie houses by the 20s and 30s. Building out to the residential north and south and east in the 1950’s . Then came doing away with the old Senator Hotel and rooming houses and the old train station with urban renewal in the 1960s.

Westchester One  set the pace,  leading to the  building of the Galleria in the 70s, followed by the elimination of the old department stores, Macy’s then Alexander’s and A &S in the 1990s . A new train station finally replaced the hole in the ground left by the old station. Then came The Westchester Mall after much argument. Apartments were built on Bank Street. The Gateway One was built.

Now in the first 23 years of the 21^st Century the city is in a long period of high rise building 40 story towers in downtown. The future started rising in 2001 when the City Center was first proposed bringing another upscale mall, movies back to downtown, followed by the concept of “connected or adjacent” zoning “finesse” which lead to the Ritz Carlton Renaissance Square condominiums and the concept of “mixed-use” development of residential buildings rising high with retail

Still the developments keep on coming:

Redesign of the 440 Hamilton and separate residential building (not completed yet). Tearing down of the Westchester Pavilion for a new mixed-used apartment and retail delayed by the recession of 2008 through the present day. We are still waiting for the design changes on that new hole in the ground.  The Saks Fifth Avenue store was torn down and Fortunoff’s built another retail, business mall.  The Crowne Plaza had appeared close by.

The White Plains Mall was sold and a new development, Hamilton Green has finally begun construction with excavation.

The Mitchell has just opened. The Gateway II apartments and mixed retail is going up very close to 20 stories now and could be finished and open by the end of  this year. We  still await the apartments now under construction at the old Esplanade being converted to apartments.

The apartments across from the Westchester are show signs of site preparation. The Waterstone assisted living residence has opened on Bloomingdale Road. Grid Properties sold their property between Maple Avenue and Post Road and White Plains Hospital is planning another hospital to be built on that property, no concrete plans yet presented. Two apartment buildings were opened on Maple up the road from Fortunoffs.

How has this changed the city? A lot.

What does city leadership have to consider? More than ever.

First, the city is heavy with traffic now. Before developments are finished.

We have a very real rush hour now with cars backing up  bumper to bumper on Main Street going into the city. Talk about congestion pricing!

There is heavy traffic on North Broadway south into the city in the mornings and going out in the evenings. There is big time backups coming into the city from the East in the A.M. and out the P.M. Up from the South on Mamaroneck Avenue the traffic is zipping and trying to judge whether they can get through the yellow without getting caught in a photo violation of the red light rule at the Bryant and Mamaroneck intersection.

The traffic is complicated throughout the day by construction work on the roads possibly connected with building as well as needed maintenance.

Pedestrians are a problem because there are a lot of jaywalkers crossing the street that drivers must watch for. I tell you jaywalking (crossing in the middle of the block) and looking at cellphones while walking instead of watching for traffic is the new way to walk around White Plains New York USA. The pedestrians also cross in the striped cross walk against the light. However the timing  on countdown lights seconds before the light changes is a terrific feature of the city traffic system.

The building has been amping up literally for the last two years. As you can tell, from the by no means complete rundown of approved projects not yet going up and starting to go up, we have yet to see the full impact of traffic when the new residents start adding their cars to the mix of traffic.

Take it from me the notion the new residents  are not going to have cars is a fantasy. If you believe the electric car predictions we need a lot of recharging stations we do not have now!

The city needs to be looking at how it  brings relief to the growing traffic congestion now, before it turns into gridlock when The Mitchells, the Hamilton Greens, the Gateway IIs  start to fill up with tenants and that’s just two more building chock full of people with cars.

Should roads be widened in the downtown? (I don’t see how.)

Should there be express lanes out on Main and Hamilton in the rush hours? Bring on the traffic consultants nowwwwwwwwwww.

The city and Common Council need to start a bunch of task forces and studies—A traffic in-flow and outflow study, a study of pedestrian enforcement before some jaywalker miscalculates Crossing gates in the roadways at lighted intersections– time for thinking out of the box.. A trolley system study to get folks from the high rises to the train station. I think about 15 years ago, the city did do a trolley study for about $160,000 but it was never made public.

And while it enters my mind those bus only lines really jammy up the traffic because Main, Mamaroneck Ave and Hamilton Avenue are too narrow.

Development is going non-stop in White Plains.

As George Gretsas once said, a town that does not develop, dies.

Right now development is looked on as the future of White Plains. It may make the city survive but it might strangle us too.

Another mixed use project: the new Galleria development is being contemplated. No site plan has been officially submitted. Peter Katz of the Westchester County Business Journal  reported  in Monday issue, the Mayor is not interested in discussing with Pacific Retail Partners until they come in with a request for a zoning change.

The Mayor also told Mr. Katz that the city owns the parking garage and expected to be paid for the garage. This city stance is interesting. Usually the city goes along with whatever a developer wants, they get: height, parking capacity. This will be a huge project that will afflict the traffic flow into and out of the city for at least 5 years, once they start it. The question is when they will get approval to raze the existing ruin of the Galleria that will be closed March 31.

The White Plains Hospital expansion, on the other hand is  receiving utmost cooperation from the White Plains city government in developing its latest project.  But…but….but it also deserves real traffic scrutiny, Maple and Post Road and South Lex are main routes out to the south side of town. The traffic situation is lousy in the mornings at the Dickstein Center and City Garage that the city built for the hospital.

The drivers dropping  off patients  in traffic lanes on Maple for the new office complex are rear-enders waiting to happen – and to charge for parking there is an outrage. In Greenwich Hospital, you get valet parking free. The traffic patterns in that development the hospital wants is another mess if they do not pay attention at city hall .

In real estate, White Plains remains a very attractive place to live because of the low real estate taxes and the school system. However as County Legislator Benjamin Boykin said in this week’s People to Be Heard interview, the county is still trying to get small businesses back to full strength. The legislator is worried that the economy is iffy.

Nowhere is it more iffy for people buying real estate, selling real estate, and representing real estated.Real Estate is flopping around on the dock because the banks are folding.

As residents in White Plains know, people want to buy their houses. Realtors want White Plains homeowners to put their homes on the market because the realtors need inventory, more houses to sell so prices can come down within reach of the first time buyers, and the moving-on-uppers.

The seller if he or she put their home, condo, co-op or two family home up for sale, can they get their price they planned on?

With this latest big time bank failures in the billions last week, compounded by the  8% inflation rate, first time buyers are getting mortgage rates that literally kill their ability to buy. You have to put 20% down on a 30 year mortgage. On a $400,000 home, that’s $100,000 down. Those of us who put middle market homes are already seeing prices escalate on those.

The median market price of Westchester  homes in the third quarter was $872,000 driven by the higher priced properties which have had to come down in their prices.

Homeowners now have to think seriously about fixing up conditions that may easily force them to lower their price to sell, allowing for repairs future homeowner might have to do. (It is a negotiation. If the owner invests to make his or her  home acceptable,  will they get their investment in repairs back?) Living in White Plains you will sell your home fast if you lower the price, but can you afford to do so?

The schools continue to have  a good reputation. The student body is very diverse. The atmosphere is good there. The school budget at a 1.9% increase up for approval May 18,is not a problem, increasing the average $650,000 single family house taxes $200. However the rise in the budget would not have been possible without the massive school aid freed up by the state legislators–made possible by covid aid.

If the County and City are afflicted with another covid sixth wave this summer (what happened last year) there may be some serious budget problems in 2024-25 school year. The enrollment is declining, but as Brenda Starr always tells me you cannot cut budgets year to year and deliver the same service (or academic atmosphere) in any organization.

Politics: the city will again be controlled this fall by an all Democratic Common Council, since the Republican Party has not announced any candidates yet.

What this Common Council has to do is develop the ability to ask questions of developers, examine the plans they present in the light of ancillary effects on the city and make changes. Each site plan in the ever flowing White Plains Development Pipeline, not yet submitted has to be viewed more in relation to the  environment it is going to affect. Impacts count!

The city solar project placements should continue. The panels on roofs of city owned buildings and availability of incentives to put solar on privately buildings built or  not built yet – should have been pushed for that Every new project should be put to the task.

The Common Council should explore utility prices with Con Edison and Westchester Power, and the Public Service Commission and the New York Independent Systems Operator. They need to find out the reasons behind why Westchester Power was forced to pay a higher rate than Con Edison, with Escos unable to compete with a lower bid. No one else is doing this. We should. This was a move to prevent consortium purchasing of electric power which has really hurt Con ED

This really hurt a Westchester Power-city like White Plains which by participation made it work. If I were on the council I would have asked to have the power establishment of New York State explain. The Escos and the power giant operated as a monopoly in restraint of trade which is against the law.

On another pressing environmental issue coming on the week when the U.N. said we have 10 years to save the world from climate change,  I would explore the advantages of requiring existing Houses and new houses to be built in White Plains should use geo-thermal units, and I suggest this to The  Mayor and Council should explore this, perhaps subsidize it.

Have I left anything out. I am sure I have forgotten something.  If I have overlooked an issue in the city I have missed and is important to you, write me at wpcnr@aol.com.

Your opinion counts.

Use it.

This is the second in the States of Life Series of First Quarter Reports where the White Plains, Westchester, New York Stage, the Mid-Hudson Regions are, in coping with their lives, expectations of government, things to watch for, situations to be alarmed about. You might call the States of Life series a reality report. You may not agree that what I write is true real or what, but my observations are put forth in your best interests to sort out your personal priorities always moving forward and draw out your own personal opinions which can be forwarded to wpcnr@aol.com.

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WPCNR QUARTERLY STATE OF LIFE SERIES # 1: STATE OF COVID. News & Comment by John F. Bailey. March 24, 2023:

The State of Covid will now be whatever our leaders say it is.

Because they who control the reports of covid spread or decline will now be only reporting results once a week on Fridays.

This is not a good development.

Those of you who make my weekly Covid Surveillance Reports developed from the daily trends of the communities in Westchester, Orange, Rockland, Dutchess, Ulster, Putnam and Sullivan Counties (the seven counties in the Mid-Hudson region) reported by the New York State Covid-19 Covid Tracker will not be worried any more or encouraged by lower numbers of new covid infections. You will understand whatever the state chooses to tell you.

Why?  Any figures  they will tell you will not reflect in real time the resurgence of the disease or the continued “diminution” of the disease. (What a lovely word! Diminution presents a very comforting feeling to the person who reads or hears it.

Once a week the authorities will analyze a week results, and who knows if they will level with us as to the real extend of the spread.

Why should they?

Because they have softened the real picture for a year and a half.

The state computerized data collection formats used the very questionable method of  the Center for Disease breaking down the number of new cases reported per county by increments of 100,000 of population.

In order to know how many infections you have in a day, I the reporter, and you the person concerned about statistics must know the population of your county to know how many infections of covid are really happening a day.

Then multiply that out by week and 4 weeks of a month. The state could very easily report the infections by total population automatically without leaving us out here in queryland to do the math.

What this format has done is provide a false sense the disease is not as spreading a lot each day.

But unless you multiply it out according to 100,000 increments of population, the growth of cases is being  reported with an error factor of as much as 50%.

Now the State  as the Center for Disease Control announced a month previously,  said Friday statistics are not going to be issued by the major stat providers. (I guess they are tired.)

This announcement by the state coincided with President Biden announcing the State of Emergency would end May 11.

Now Governor Hochul and the legislature currently controls covid policy and the right to announce a covid state of emergency  again if needed.

To refresh your memory, the  State Senators and Assemblypersons  took this away from the Governor’s office during the sunset of the former governor (Andrew Cuomo).  Now the senators and assemblypersons are now following suit.

The Governor’s updates on covid released to the press via email  have basically stayed the same issuing new statistics based on the former day, sometimes on time and sometimes not — now are going to issue the stats for a week on new covid cases beginning this  week. The day-by-day results will be on the New York State Covid Tracker dailyl

However the state is also looking at relaxing the amount of reporting hospitals have to provide on covid cases coming in, admissions.

It is unclear how detailed or curtailed the hospitalization figures will be. The statkeepers in the hospitals do not for the most part do hot treat patients.

I see no reason why that cannot still be reported the same way it is now. Hospitalizations broken down by daily covid cases compared to total hospitalization admissions.

My concern may be way off base, but the hospitalization stats you can get by hospital off the New York State Health Department Hospitalization site are hard to get a true picture because they are tough for the non-technical person to  even access a hospital without knowing the hospital code. The hospitalization numbers are very difficult to access comparative information fast. (Perhaps that’s why few media report them in a comparative way that actually means something.)

Since the March 17 statistics came out, here is where Westchester County stands:

First the good news that the present daily statistics put out ended March 17

Westchester county had 35 positives if 1,211 tested 2.7%. The county over 7 days average 3.6 new cases a day per 100,000 population.

Westchester has completed a 13th week of decline in new covid cases with 175 cases compared to 254 last week. 989 for the 2 weeks and 3 days of March so far..

However, not so fast. At 3.6 new cases per 100,000 population a day over 7 days, you have to multiply that by 23.26 the number of 100,000 uncrements in Westchester population (1,040,000) to get the true daily figure.

The true daily number of cases for 1 day is 90 a day. Which is 634 for a week and over the month of March would give us 2,559 new cases in the month.

Perhaps this explains the high number of hospitalizations the 7 counties are experiencing the first three weeks of March

According to the report statistics on the hospitalizations graph for the Mid-Husdson Region of the 7 counties this is the hospitalizations were for the counties which have a total population of :

The population of the 7 counties in the Mid-Hudson Region is 2,326,000. That means there are 23.26 segments of 100,000 in the 7 county population. Multiply that daily figure of new covid patients hospitalized in 7 counties (55.56  per 100,000 people, you get 129 hospitalized patients with covid  being hospitalized in 1 day March 16 in the 7 counties as of March 13.

Hospitalizations for  17 days in March for all 7 counties look like this:

MARCH   COVID HOSPITALIZATIONS  ICU INTUBATED  COVID/DAY/100KPop    DAY/WEEK/MONTH

17                  117                              11                            5.56               129  /905 /3,621

16                 129                               10                           5.56                 129  /905/3,621

15                 128                                14                           5.51                128  /897/3,588

14                 129                                13                           5.56                129  /905/3,621

13                  137                               15                           5.9                  137  /960/3,842

10                  136                                12                           5.86                136  /954/3,816

9                  145                                  7                           6.24                145 /1,015/4063

8                  147                                  7                           6.33                147/1,029/4,116

7                  153                                 11                           7                    162/1,139/4,558

6                  151                                 11                            6.50              151/1,058/4,233

3                 147                                  15                            6.33               147/1029/4116

2                 155                                  15                            6.68               155/1,087/4,350

1                  178                                 12                            7.67               178/1,246/4,984

FEB 28         164                                  13                           7.06               164/1,149/4,598

The above chart shows you what the probable hospitalizations will be across 7 Mid-Hudson Counties for the month of March– approximately 4,500 if the current average covid hospitalizations for covid continue

The hospitalizations for covid as you can see are going down  from 164  as of February 28 to 129 last Friday..110but not by much. The average for the 7 counties for the 13 days is 144 for the 7 counties  the new infections a day give you 1,015 infections a day, 4,000 cases in the month.

This covid is out there and we need to be aware.

How does this affect White Plains Hospital Center?

WHITE PLAINS HOSPITAL SITUATION

However, in White Plains alone, in the 30 days since February 15, White Plains Hospital Center has admitted 329 patients and 130 (40% of those admitted) were admitted for treatment of covid.

In the last week, White Plains has  Hospital has seen some slowdown. Of  68 admissions, 42 were admitted for treatment of covid (62% of admissions) from March 8 to 15. March 1st through March 8, 42 persons of the 72 admitted (62%) were for treatment of covid.

Westchester County had 2,906 cases lab verified positive with covid in the month of February. But why all the hospitalizations across the 7 counties?

I worry there are just more covid positive persons out there who of antigen tested saw they were positive but have not  gone to get lab verified becaus they need to work, need to take care of children and covid makes them sick and they eventually get so sick they have to have go to the hospital for treatment. This is just a hunch.

Significantly there is no data now telling the true nature of our covid situation.

If the state is thinking seriously about cutting data from the hospitals because they think it is no longer needed how with the State Senators and Assembly persons and county health officials decide if covid is under control or not.

We need more data not less.

If I was a health administrator I would demand, no, WANT to know:

1. How long each covid infected person is now staying in the hospital.
2. How many are reinfectees, so we can judge how many will come  back. (They have to be coming back now)
3. How many have long covid
4. How much additional medications to they need.
5. Do our hospitals have enough medication to take in these persons so sick they need to be admitted to the hospital at a 40% rate of admissions a day?
6. We should stop worrrying bout keeping empty beds and worry about and find out aggressively what the disease is doing. Are we seeing new variants?
7.  The schools should be told to report new cases of covid, flu so we can see how the new laissez fair State Education Department you do not have to report cases of covid policy is working out. We do not know. Let me repeat that, we do not know.
8. The disease roared back last July with 10,000 new cases in a month, and here after almost 7-1/2 months later we still seeing new cases over 7 counties at a 4,000 a month pace, what if this happens again, only on a larger scale, what will the leadership do?
9. Vaccine boosters for the fall, will county residents have to pay for them? The public is not getting their full compliment of shots when they are free. It is not their fault. They have been told it’s O.K. with no reason except hopeful optimism. If covid throws a 6th wave at us by summer, somebody has to think about how they are going to get the unvaccinated and not completely vaccinated vaccinated.
10. Restrictions have been completely relaxed. Leaders say we are getting back to a new normal. We’re told all about the wonderful things being done in Albany in the budget. Could do a little thinking about the covid situation please.

Thinking is something the leaders in Albany and Counties and cities and towns should do more of.

Hits: 119

Do we need a spring COVID-19 booster?

Katelyn Jetelina

 and 

Jeremy Faust, MD

2 hr ago

(Reprinted with permission)

It’s been close to 6 months since the initial rollout of the fall (bivalent) booster. A lot of people are wondering: Do I need a spring booster? 

The answer hinges on more questions: What is the purpose of vaccines? Does that purpose change depending on age or health status?

The purpose of the vaccines

Last month, the FDA and CDC made it clear that the primary purpose of vaccines is to prevent severe disease and death. Decreases in infection and transmission are a bonus at this point, and unfortunately, protection against infection is only temporary.

This makes sense for younger and healthier people. They are staying out of the hospital from COVID-19 for three main reasons:

1. Hybrid immunity. Younger people are more likely to have been infected. People with both vaccination and infection history have protection that lasts longer.
2. Less likely to have comorbidities. Their immune systems are less taxed.
3. Robust immune memories, particularly T-cells. Their thymuses (the organs that give rise to T cells) haven’t gradually degraded into useless blobs of fat, yet.

This means that even if antibodies are waning after 5-6 months, this is okay because protection against severe disease isn’t waning yet.

The story is different for immunocompromised and other very high-risk groups, like older Americans with comorbidities. The purpose of the vaccines for this group should also be to prevent severe disease and death. However, one could argue that in order to do that, we also need to prevent illness.

There’s one big reason for this: SARS-CoV-2 infection can exacerbate potentially fatal underlying illnesses, like heart failure or diabetes. Protection against viruses and underlying illnesses relies on antibodies to act quickly before the immune system is pulled in multiple directions. If it is pulled in multiple directions, it can lead to hospitalization and death.

Immunocompromised 

Of the COVID-19 hospitalizations today, 25% are among the immune-compromised. (Immune-compromised make up 3% of the general population). There are really two subgroups to think about:

1. Non-responders to vaccines. At this point, this is a very small group of people, like organ transplant patients. Some people who did not respond to 2 or 3 doses eventually did respond to 4 or 5 doses. For the remaining non-responders, one could argue that there’s no point in boosting them, but the downsides of trying seem low.
2. Protection wanes quickly. The majority of immunocompromised people belong in this second group. The vaccine works, but just not as well and not as long. For them, vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization with the fourth dose peaks at 51% at 0-2 months, then drops to 28% by 2-4 months. (The bivalent booster may increase protection and duration, but we don’t know yet.)

There are few downsides to boosting this group every 6 months. It’s actually possible that the immune-compromised are somewhat protected against imprinting by virtue of their sluggish immune systems.

Older Americans with comorbidities

Those 65 years and older are contributing more and more to the proportion of deaths over time. Among adults hospitalized for COVID-19, 96% had at least one underlying condition.

This is because 2 of the 3 defense walls have more holes than those of younger people. Comorbidities also increase with age, which means the immune response in general is a lot more taxed.

So this is another group in whom we want to prevent infection in order to prevent severe disease.

The latest data from the last ACIP meeting shows waning protection against infection among this group after 4-5 months.

The good news is that we clearly see that the risk of severe disease even in the very elderly dramatically declines with vaccination. In fact, very few people are in the hospital today who are up-to-date on vaccines. However, will this change with time? How much each booster helps (or does not help) incrementally is something that we really don’t have a good grip on prospectively.

What are other countries doing? 

Canada and the U.K. have offered the bivalent vaccine to the following groups this spring. To our knowledge, this wasn’t based on any new data but rather a similar thought process as above.

Both countries used loose language: people “can” as opposed to “should” get a booster 6 months after the last dose:

U.K.:

• People aged 75 years and older
• Residents of care homes and other living settings for seniors
• Those aged 5 years and older with a weakened immune system

Canada:

• People aged 80 years and older
• Residents of care homes and other living settings for seniors or those with complex medical care needs
• People aged 18 years and older who are moderately to severely immunocompromised
• People aged 65 to 79 years, particularly those with no history of SARS-CoV-2 infection

Will this be needed every 6 months until we start seeing predictable COVID-19 patterns? We don’t know. The WHO is meeting in Geneva this week to discuss global COVID vaccine recommendations going forward.

Bottom line

If you’re immunocompromised and/or an older adult with a comorbidity (and it’s been 6 months since an infection or last booster), a spring booster may be a good idea to stay ahead of the virus. Will it be official U.S. policy? We don’t know. There are rumors of FDA conversations happening behind closed doors. Hopefully, we will have an answer soon. But, as you can tell, it’s not a straightforward call.