NYC to Deliver 500,000 Rapid Tests and 1 Million Masks as Omicron Cases Increase – Telemundo New York (47)

NEW YORK – New York City will deliver 500,000 rapid tests through community groups and 1 million masks as the city deals with what Mayor Bill de Blasio called a “very substantial increase” in cases in recent days.

“The data we monitor so closely shows an alarming trend,” Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi said at a news conference.

The strategy is part of a broader approach, as the percentage of people in New York City who tested positive for COVID-19 doubled in three days this week according to a senior adviser to Mayor Bill de Blasio said it was an indication of that the Omicron variant evades immunity in a way the virus has never done before.

Dr. Jay Varma, a Cornell professor and the mayor’s senior public health adviser, tweeted Thursday morning that the city’s positivity rate was rising dramatically.

“We’ve never seen this before on #NYC,” Varma tweeted, noting that the daily positivity rate on December 9 was 3.9% and appeared to have doubled on December 12 to 7.8%.

“This is # SARSCoV2 evading both vaccine-induced and virus-induced immunity * against infection * unlike any previous variant. That is the only explanation for the dramatic jump in positivity. The consensus for now (but subject to changes) is that immunity * against serious diseases * should be better, “he continued tweeting.

(A new British study published Thursday suggested that the Omicron variant could cause symptoms that could be mistaken for a common cold. That comes amid growing research indicating that Omicron causes milder illness than the delta variant, but will make people sick. many more people, threatening the stability of health systems.)

After Varma’s tweet, the city updated its data to show that the positivity rate was actually 7.3% on December 12, dropping to 6.5% on December 13; in any case, it is still about double what it was a week before.

Omicron NYC Cases on the Rise

In general, city indicators are going in the wrong direction. In the past seven days, the city averaged 2,899 positive cases per day, 1,000 more than the 28-day average.

Streaming rates are also climbing almost directly: 311 per 100,000 as of Monday, more than doubling in the space of two weeks.

For the first time, the city listed Ómicron on its variant tracking page on Thursday, indicating that it was identified in 1% of cases tested in the past week. That number is expected to grow rapidly, as it has elsewhere.

The same is happening across the state, prompting Gov. Kathy Hochul to warn Thursday that the state was going down a “rough road” this following winter as COVID rose again.

He said new measures were on the way to try to fight the virus.

“At some point, we may have to determine that being fully vaccinated can also mean the booster,” he said, adding that an announcement would come soon and that people should “prepare for that.”

– .