County officials and doctors are keeping an eye on the capacities of hospitals as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to rise across Long Island.

Nassau County Executive Laura Curran says the county's COVID-19 positivity rate is now at 6.8%. Suffolk's positivity rate is higher, at 8.9%.

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone says that's down slightly from 9.1% yesterday.

Officials say the majority of new COVID-19 cases are coming from household gatherings, especially around the holidays.

Curran says, "The thing that's quite alarming is we've seen from Thanksgiving Day hospitalizations triple."

With New Year's Eve coming up, Bellone says, "The surge we are continuing to see should make anyone planning to attend a celebration with individuals outside of your household rethink their plans."

Doctors say they're concerned because when community rates go up there will be an increase in hospitalization rates too. They say it's important hospitals don't get overwhelmed.

"Our hospital numbers continue to rise and that is a concern, and I would not anticipate that our numbers in our hospitals will start to fall until we see a fall in the rates in our communities," says Dr. David Hirschwerk, with Northwell Health.

Curran says Nassau hospitals are in good shape for now in terms of capacity. She adds, "But it's up to us now to help them continue staying there, staying way under capacity, that's where we want them right now as we wait for this vaccine to get widely distributed."

Doctors say we're still months away from the COVID-19 vaccine being widely available to the public.