COVID-19 hospitalizations are skyrocketing in New York, with numbers reaching totals the state hasn't seen since July.

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On Saturday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced 826 New Yorkers were hospitalized with COVID-19, the most since around July 4, according to the state's COVID-19 dashboard. On Sunday, that number was down six, to 820.

On Sept. 12, 464 people were hospitalized with coronavirus. The latest state numbers show the number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 is up nearly 77 percent, 76.72 percent to be exact, in the last month.

Cuomo says the spike in hospitalizations is due to the clusters of COVID-19 in parts of Orange County, Rockland County, Brooklyn and Queens.

"We're dealing with a very specific situation, which is the clusters. Overall the state is doing very well. We have a sophisticated testing mechanism where we take, now, more tests per day than most states take per week. That allows us to do a very granular analysis. Most states don't have that capacity or don't have that desire," Cuomo said Sunday in a press release. "Because we test as much as we do, and because we have such an ability to target, we then see clusters and we can track cases in very small clusters. We're now tracking a cluster in about 2 or 3 percent of the population. No other state has this discussion because no other state has the ability to target that way. We do, and that's a good thing because when you can target a specific cluster, it means you can attack a specific cluster. Attacking a cluster is much easier than trying to attack a statewide increasing rate."

On Sunday, Cuomo said in "Red Zone" focus areas included as part of the Governor's Cluster Action Initiative, the positivity rate for test results reported Saturday is 5.74 percent and 6.13 percent for the past week. These "Red Zone" focus areas are home to 2.8 percent of the state's population, yet have had 17.6 percent of all positive cases reported this week to New York State, officials say.

New York State's positivity rate without the Red Zone focus areas included was 0.84 percent. The state's overall positivity rate - with Red Zone focus areas included - dropped to 0.96 percent, under 1 percent for the first time since September 24.

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