New York worries about rising COVID-19 positivity rate

New coronavirus cases continue to rise in New York City, with a positivity rate now reaching 3.25%, a worrying increase for authorities in a city that has become a model of virus control after a record 23,800 deaths in spring.

• Read also: Trump announces distribution of 150 million rapid tests for coronavirus

• Read also: New York’s positivity rate starts to rise again

“For the first time in a long time, the daily positivity rate is above 3%, and this is a cause for real concern,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press briefing.

The increase comes as most public schools are due to reopen their doors this week for partially face-to-face teaching, and New York restaurants will, for the first time since March, be able to accommodate diners with limited capacity to 25%.

Mr. de Blasio had indicated this summer that a rate of 3% over seven days would cause the closure of establishments. As the increase in positivity is recent, this rate is currently 1.38%.

“We are at a turning point. We need to take new measures at this stage, stronger measures, and we will gradually strengthen them every day according to the situation on the ground, ”he added.

Six neighborhoods in Brooklyn, including neighborhoods with a large Orthodox Jewish population, and two in Queens are particularly affected, due to the Yom Kippur Jewish holidays, and New York health officials are deploying mobile coronavirus testing sites there this week and provide for actions to remind the population of barrier gestures.

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, who keeps calling on New Yorkers not to let their guard down in the face of the virus, has pointed to a rebound in cases not only in New York but in some counties in the a large New York suburb, particularly in Rockland County, also with a large Orthodox population, where the positivity rate has even reached 30% in one neighborhood.

“We have a problem of outbreaks, due to a lack of respect” for barrier gestures and the wearing of masks, he declared. He accused “the local authorities” – and implicitly Mr. de Blasio – of not enforcing the distancing instructions.

“If we don’t control the outbreaks now, we will have a generalized spread. We’re not there yet, that’s why I want people to wake up, ”added Cuomo.

The governor indicated that he was going to meet, virtually, officials of the Orthodox Jewish community and local elected officials from the areas concerned to remind them of the importance of following instructions.

– .