Seth Wenig / AP / dpa
In the spring of 2020, New York was an epicenter of the corona pandemic. Then it got better, yes the city became a kind of example of how to do it right. But as it looks now, it was just a breather.
Just a few weeks ago, New York seemed to be something of a ray of hope in the fight against Corona in the USA. The new virus variant Omikron has changed that drastically. The most populous city in the country is experiencing a new dramatic increase in infections, long queues in front of test facilities and a new discussion about a planned major event with thousands of participants. Many feel exhausted that the scenario of the early pandemic days of 2020 is repeated when the metropolis became a nightmarish test case for the challenges posed by Corona.
Health officials emphasize that there are important differences from the spring of last year, namely access to vaccines. But a number of Broadway shows have closed abruptly, wearing masks indoors is again mandatory – and being tested is another frustrating puzzle.
“It’s disappointing that we haven’t developed a better system for this and that we weren’t better prepared for a new wave,” says Jordan Thomas after waiting four hours in front of a municipal health facility in Brooklyn that offers Covid tests.
Home untested
Nina Clark knows what Thomas is talking about. She has queued in near-freezing temperatures for the third time after developing symptoms four days earlier. And this time, too, she returns home untested – the rush is too big. “I stood outside in the cold and said to myself:” I can’t do that, “says Clark. “Everywhere you go there is a line.”
Health officials and other experts urge you not only to get tested but also to get a booster shot. But even the latter is easier said than done. For example, those willing to be vaccinated had to wait for hours in front of a privately operated pharmacy in Manhattan.
In November, New York closed a number of test centers due to a lack of demand and instead increasingly relied on mobile facilities such as test buses. Now it is difficult to expand the capacities again. The 130,000 daily tests in city-sponsored facilities on Monday were already twice as many as just three weeks ago. In addition, there are staff shortages in some places because some employees have also become infected.
City wants to distribute test kits
Mayor Bill de Blasio has now announced a rapid expansion of the offer for the next few days. The city also wants to distribute 500,000 test kits for home use. And to encourage residents to get a booster vaccination, anyone who does so will be rewarded with $ 100 by the end of the year.
The USA as a whole has been dealing with an increase in cases of infection from the delta variant for months, and now Omikron has been added, and has already become the dominant version of the corona virus in the country within a very short time. Many other parts of the United States have higher infection rates than the city of New York last week, but the metropolis has already broken its previous records for several days in a row. “We have never seen this before in NYC (New York City),” tweeted de Blasio’s health advisor Jay Varma last Thursday about the rapid increase.
From Wednesday to Saturday of last week alone, the metropolis recorded 42,600 positive tests – compared with less than 35,800 in the entire month of November. And on Sunday there were more than 15,000 positive test results. As of December 1, the number of new infections per capita in the city was just over half the average in New York State, and now it is higher than the average.
New York City is also seeing an increase in hospital stays, but at a much slower rate. In the middle of last week there were around 110 new admissions a day, about twice as many as a month earlier, but still over 100 fewer than a year ago – not to mention the beginning of April 2020, when the number rose to over 1,600 a day . At that time, an average of almost 800 deaths a day were recorded and at the end of January this year 100. In contrast, the number up to the middle of last week was around a dozen a day.
This can currently still be managed well by the hospitals, but they are preparing for possible staff shortages if more employees have to stay at home because of infections or contact with infected people. Wherever possible, services will be switched to virtual to free nurses to care for patients in clinics with bottlenecks, says Mitchell Katz, who manages the city’s public health system.
New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square questionable
But despite all the differences to 2020, there are still some parallels. So the city is weighing whether it can pull off a popular traditional event – the New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square. So it was last spring with the St. Patrick’s Day parade. And residents are thinking again about what activities they can do without putting their health at risk.
Sheldon Rogers works for a technology company and recently attended a Christmas party with colleagues. After a Covid outbreak shortly thereafter, he spent three hours waiting in line to get tested at a private Brooklyn facility. But at least he was lucky: the result was negative.
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