What you should know
- New York City is posting its highest daily case averages since late May (hit 795 on Tuesday); the continuous positivity rate is up to 2.31 percent. If it reaches 3 percent, public schools would all switch to remote.
- In New Jersey, approximately 1 in 500 residents has been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the past 7 days. The new restrictions take effect Thursday.
- It comes amid a national surge that has seen the United States break its own daily COVID-19 case records. Governor Andrew Cuomo says the next few months will be tough
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NEW YORK – “This is our last chance,” that was Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Monday message as he delivered another sobering report of New York City’s latest metrics on the COVID front.
His tone didn’t change Tuesday when he released the health indicators he does at each briefing. Unlike the summer, when de Blasio applauded progress, his descriptors have changed to phrases including “of tremendous concern” and “very disturbing.” It is not difficult to understand why.
For weeks, he has voiced growing concern about the city’s average daily number of cases, which topped 600 for three days last week for the first time in months and ended last week with a report of more than 700 new cases. On Monday, that shot up to 779, well above the mayor’s threshold of 550 cases. However, on Tuesday there were 795.
He described the next metric, the city’s daily positivity rate (2.88 percent), as “very concerning.” But it’s the seven-day moving positivity average, which he calls the “most objective measure” of the city’s position in its war on coronavirus, that has drawn the greatest level of concern from the mayor. That number hovered around 1 percent for much of the summer when the city lowered its infection rate.
On Monday, it exceeded 2 percent (2.21 percent). On Tuesday it reached 2.31 percent, an increase of 4.5 percent from the previous day. If that positivity rate hits 3 percent, De Blasio has repeatedly said that would mean a full-blown second wave. Public schools in all five boroughs would have to go completely remote for a while again.
“If that goes above 3 percent and it continues to go up, obviously the state will make the final decisions, but I think there will be a real concern about whether we can continue to have businesses open on the same scale that they are open now,” de Blasio said. “You can see restrictions in certain industries. You can see large-scale closures. You can see limits on hours. All of those things are possible.”
“This is our last chance at this time to stop a second wave. If we are not able to stop it, clearly there will be many consequences that will remind us too much of where we were before,” he added.
Hospital admissions have seen spikes across all five boroughs, but for now they remain at a manageable level, de Blasio said. However, as the city saw in the spring, hospitalizations lag behind in increases in cases. Death follows intake spikes.
It’s not just the numbers that city officials find puzzling. It is the source of new infections – they are becoming more widespread, de Blasio said.
The city’s top physician, Dr. Dave Chokski, endorsed the mayor at that point Monday. He said the city is now seeing signs of broader community outreach. Yes, travel impact cases (about 10 percent of new ones go back to that); And yes, specific meetings and events cause some (about 5 to 10 percent). But that leaves at least 80 percent of new cases without an easily identifiable source.
The city has not had any major superprocessor events, an indication of how successful it has been in controlling its infection rate, even as other major cities in the United States are dangerously out of control in that regard. It has had isolated groups with high positivity rates, but those groups are being aggressively managed under Governor Andrew Cuomo’s micro-group approach, and the numbers have already declined within all the initial red zones to the point where Cuomo has been able to. ease restrictions on each of them.
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In contrast to de Blasio’s urgent tone, Cuomo seemed more resigned in a conference call with reporters on Monday, resigned to the fact that this will be the reality for New York in the months ahead, as vacation travel and weather get more Cold conditions pose new challenges in the fight against COVID and a vaccine is months away.
He believes the situation at the national level will get worse before it gets better and is concentrating on what he can do at home. Cuomo established three new yellow caution zones in the north of the state Monday to combat rising positivity rates there and is monitoring data in two high-positivity areas of Staten Island, ready to establish another zone if necessary. It has enhanced the National Guard presence at New York airports to ensure compliance with its new COVID entry testing policy.
Still, Cuomo says New York’s numbers will continue to rise through the rest of the fall and winter. Recent changes have been jarring: New York has averaged nearly 3,000 new infections per day over the past seven days, up 83 percent in two weeks. Total hospitalizations are at their highest level since June 16 (1,444 to Monday) and increasing daily. Spikes in death will likely follow.
This is simply the current reality of the situation in the United States, Cuomo says. Some level of increase is inevitable, he says; your goal is to mitigate your height.
“This will be the constant for the foreseeable future. People are tired, I understand that,” said the governor. “But the virus is not getting tired. And that’s all that matters.”
Across the river, New Jersey is also experiencing its biggest viral spikes in months. Gov. Phil Murphy took action Monday, affecting late-night dining in bars and restaurants and indoor youth sports with a list of new COVID-19 restrictions that will go into effect statewide on Thursday.
It’s a much more restrained approach than the total shutdown Murphy ordered in March, he said, but hospitalizations need to be tripled, positivity rates rising and the number of daily cases that haven’t been seen since early May.
“This is not forever. We basically have a six-month window to fight fatigue and defeat the virus,” Murphy said. “This virus has not gone away and represents the biggest threat to us in months.”
That is an understatement. New Jersey reported nearly 4,000 (3,877) new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, about eight times the daily figures I was seeing at the end of September. That was only six weeks ago. Tuesday’s report marked the highest daily total of new cases since April 20; In perspective, about one in every 500 New Jerseyans has been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the past seven days.
Hospitalizations are reaching mid-June levels and daily death reports, which are rising more slowly than other figures, are increasing.
“These numbers are devastating,” the governor tweeted Tuesday. “We are still in the middle of a pandemic. Wear a mask. Physical distance. Stay safe.”
Murphy told New Jerseyans Monday there was good news: a vaccine was on the horizon and he anticipates wide distribution in the spring. He said he has a plan ready in case that deadline sticks and urged the people of his state: “Let’s get through the rest of this fall and winter together.”
As Cuomo said earlier this week, it will be a difficult few months.
The increase in cases in the United States has left no state untouched. The country has now surpassed 10 million cases, by far the highest total of any nation in the world, and reported more than 240,000 deaths, according to NBC News. It only took 10 days to go from nine million to 10 million cases, and the next milestone is likely not far off.
The United States again broke its record for single-day cases on Monday, reporting more than 130,000 cases for the first time. It was the sixth consecutive day in which the country registers more than 100,000 daily cases and the ninth new record set since October 22.
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