NEW YORK, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- New York State's COVID-19 test positivity rate dipped to 2.99 percent on Saturday, compared with 3.06 percent on Friday, or below 3 percent for the first time since Nov. 23, said Governor Andrew Cuomo on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the state's total COVID-19 hospitalizations and fatalities respectively stood at 5,764 and 75 on Saturday, down from 5,977 and 97 on Friday, according to Cuomo.
"We continue to see a reduction in positivity and hospitalizations throughout the state, which is good news, and this progress is allowing us to reopen the valve on our economy even further," the governor was quoted as saying in an official release.
"We are in a race right now -- between our ability to vaccinate and these variants which are actively trying to proliferate -- and we will only win that race if we stay smart and disciplined," he added.
In addition, the governor said that the first case of the variant first detected in South Africa had been identified in a resident of New York State. The sequencing, involving a Nassau County resident, was conducted at Opentrons Labworks Inc's Pandemic Response Lab, a New York City based commercial lab, and verified at the Wadsworth Center in Albany.
Last week, a Connecticut resident who had been hospitalized in New York City was found to have the same variant, according to the release.
As of Sunday noon, the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University reported 46,736 deaths in New York State, the second worst in the country following the state of California with a death toll of 49,120. Enditem
