New York City health officials are expected to release guidelines Wednesday on how and where to get a second booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccine. This after the approval of the FDA and the CDC so that people over 50 years of age can receive it.
Nonetheless, demand appeared in the city immediately, especially as trends of increasing cases return.
New cases and positivity rates are rising in New York City, but not where they were three months ago.
COVID-19 in New York City
Transmission rates are increasing, especially in Manhattan, up 40% in the last week and nearly 100% in two weeks.
In Tribeca, the positivity rate is now over 9%, with many other city neighborhoods approaching 7%. However, in absolute terms, the number of infections is still a tiny fraction of what it was two to three months ago.
The BA.2 variant, sometimes called the “Stealth Omicron”, has now become dominant in the United States, leading to the increase in cases.
Ultimately, officials say dominance of BA.2 was expected and some other variant of COVID is expected to take its turn as well. That doesn’t necessarily exacerbate community risk. In the city, the alert level remains “low”.
The symptoms of BA.2 are similar to those experienced by people who contract other strains of COVID, including fever or chills, runny nose, and fatigue, among others.
But much is still unknown about the subvariant to date.
Although the World Health Organization has said that BA.2 is “inherently more transmissible” than the previous strain, there is no evidence at this time to indicate that it is more resistant to vaccines or is linked to more serious infections, which are much more critical landmarks for city leaders. They are not in “alarmist” mode.
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