NEW YORK — Coronavirus infection rates are spiking in the city with more than 15% of all tests coming back positive on average in the past week, data from the Health Department shows — and it remains unclear if Mayor Eric Adams will take any new steps to address the pandemic resurgence.
While the weeklong test positivity average is at 15.4% citywide, there are pockets in every borough where the rate tops an alarming 20%, the data shows. COVID-19 hospitalizations are ticking up, too.
As of Thursday, 1,119 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the city, the highest number since February, according to city data. Compounded with booster vaccination rates remaining largely stagnant, public health experts view the spiking hospitalization rate as especially troubling as it indicates that more people are falling seriously ill from the virus.
Health Department data shows the citywide coronavirus booster rate has been stuck around 39% since April, a concerning sign as the effectiveness of the first two vaccine doses wanes over time.
“We need a campaign to reverse this trend, based on a simple Q: are you up to date on your vax?” Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine wrote on Twitter over the weekend.
Levine, who used to chair the City Council’s Health Committee and has been a major proponent of vaccine mandates, suggested Adams should reintroduce a $100 cash incentive for boosters and roll out an aggressive ad campaign educating New Yorkers that being “up to date on your vax” should at this stage of the pandemic include a third shot.
But Adams has so far been vague on how his administration will fight the latest COVID-19 spike.
Earlier this month, Adams’ Health Department removed the color-coded alert system that spelled out a range of actions that the municipal government should consider taking when infection rates hit specific thresholds, like reinstating mask and vaccine mandates for certain public indoor spaces and activities.
The alert system was scrapped without any immediate replacement plan from Adams.
Asked by the Daily News this past Thursday how the city will battle COVID without the alert system, Adams promised he’s working on “new weapons” for the pandemic fight. He said he’s going to bring in experts “from all across the globe” to help build the new weapons, but did not elaborate on what they will look like or how soon New Yorkers can expect them.
Adams spokesman Fabien Levy did not have any more details to provide Monday about the forthcoming “weapons.”
But Levy touted that the Adams administration has doubled down on providing free at-home tests to New Yorkers — delivering more than 35 million so far — and expanding access to Paxlovid, an antiviral pill that people who test positive can receive at no-cost from the city.
“These are some of the new tools the mayor was referencing that we didn’t have as much access to in the past,” he said.
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who designed the indoor vaccine and mask mandates that Adams rescinded early on in his tenure, suggested at an unrelated press conference in Manhattan Monday afternoon that there’s not enough “urgency” from the city in response to the latest coronavirus outbreak.
“More public information and urgency is needed, and every tool that we developed — those vaccine mandates and all those other tools need to be ready to be activated quickly as this develops,” he said. “I do think there’s new things we have to do.”
The summer wave is being driven by BA.5 and BA.4, exceedingly transmissible subvariants of the omicron COVID strain that have become the country’s most common virus types in recent weeks.
In a bid to expand access to care for COVID-19 patients amid the summer surge, Gov. Hochul announced Monday that the state government is teaming up with the city’s public hospital system to launch a hotline for those who test positive but do not have a regular health care provider.
The free hotline, 888-TREAT-NY, is available 24/7 and will be staffed by health professionals who have the clinical training needed to prescribe treatments and referrals if needed, according to Hochul’s office.
“We’ve made real progress in our fight against COVID-19, but as new variants continue to spread it’s important to continue to adapt and expand our efforts to protect New Yorkers,” Hochul said. “Our new COVID-19 treatment hotline will provide New Yorkers with better access to early treatments that help prevent severe illness.”
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