If you live in New York City, you're not just imagining that everyone seems to have COVID-19 right now.
Peter Suwondo, a Columbia University medical student and former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention health policy advisor, took a look at the data shared by the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and found that over 1 percent of New Yorkers were infected in the last week alone. "In Manhattan, transmission was even higher: roughly 1 of out every 60 people," he wrote:
Nearly 39,000 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in New York state on Thursday, up more than 10,000 from Wednesday, The New York Times reports. Some 22,808 of Thursday's new cases came out of New York City. The city's average test positivity rate was at 11 percent as of Tuesday.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The highly contagious Omicron variant, which is being blamed for the winter surge, "seems to be the variant of the wealthy," Curbed writes, pointing out that hard-hit areas include the affluent Manhattan neighborhoods of Soho and Greenwich Village. But "experts say the reasons why cases are so much higher in Manhattan are varied" — including that being able to wait in line for a test is a luxury — and that "it's likely that the high transmission rates that are being documented there actually exist throughout the rest of the city, too."
On Thursday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city would hold its traditional New Year's celebration in Times Square, but with a reduced crowd to limit the risk of infection due to the surge. Viewing areas for the event that normally can accommodate about 58,000 people will be limited to crowds totaling about 15,000 this year. Everyone attending will have to wear a mask and show proof of vaccination.
-
August 23 editorial cartoonsCartoons Saturday's political cartoons include deficit dimness, steamroller-in-chief, and more
-
5 museum-grade cartoons about Trump's Smithsonian purgeCartoons Artists take on institutional rebranding, exhibit interpretation, and more
-
Settling the West Bank: a death knell for a Palestine state?In the Spotlight The reality on the ground is that the annexation of the West Bank is all but a done deal
-
Texas declares end to measles outbreakSpeed Read The vaccine-preventable disease is still spreading in neighboring states, Mexico and Canada
-
RFK Jr. shuts down mRNA vaccine funding at agencySpeed Read The decision canceled or modified 22 projects, primarily for work on vaccines and therapeutics for respiratory viruses
-
Measles cases surge to 33-year highSpeed Read The infection was declared eliminated from the US in 2000 but has seen a resurgence amid vaccine hesitancy
-
Kennedy's vaccine panel signals skepticism, changeSpeed Read RFK Jr.'s new vaccine advisory board intends to make changes to the decades-old US immunization system
-
Kennedy ousts entire CDC vaccine advisory panelspeed read Health Secretary RFK Jr. is a longtime anti-vaccine activist who has criticized the panel of experts
-
RFK Jr. scraps Covid shots for pregnant women, kidsSpeed Read The Health Secretary announced a policy change without informing CDC officials
-
New FDA chiefs limit Covid-19 shots to elderly, sickspeed read The FDA set stricter approval standards for booster shots
-
US overdose deaths plunged 27% last yearspeed read Drug overdose still 'remains the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18-44,' said the CDC
