COVID-19 is soaring through every borough of New York City, far beyond parameters promised by the governor’s office that would result in community lockdowns as recently as October.
City data reveals that 54 zip codes have a positive test rate north of 10%, a dramatic rise from the week before Thanksgiving, when 40 of the 177 zip codes in NYC saw positive test rates above 4%.
Those rates are still well below their spring highs, but far higher than on Oct. 21, when Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, said he would lock down any neighbourhood where the virus returned positive for more than 4 percent of tests.
Health officials introduced a new strategy to designate “red zones” based on hospital capacity measures after numbers exploded across the state following the holidays.
Meanwhile, cases, hospitalizations and virus deaths continued their upward trajectory this week, with an average of 67 people dying every day in New York City, up from just 6 when, according to city reports, the governor introduced the new tight lockdown measure in October.
Except for Manhattan below Washington Heights and Brooklyn and Queens neighbourhoods along the East River, the latest figures indicate that most areas of the city are home to zip codes that are over 10 percent.
South Brooklyn has been hit particularly hard by increasing rates of positivity, like Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach and Sheepshead Bay, with the city’s highest zip code.
17.6 percent of those screened returned positive for COVID-19 during the past week in the 11235 zip code.
Eight neighbouring zip codes, from Sunset Park to Borough Park to Coney Island, all saw testing rates also reaching the benchmark.
Hunt’s Point’s 10474 in the Bronx had the worst test percentage at 12.2.
Also in the dark red was a large cluster of the borough, with more than a zip code covering the areas from Concourse to Soundview and as far north as the Yonkers boundary to City Island checking greater than 10%.
On opposite coasts, Staten Island’s worst faring zip codes is with New Dorp’s 10304 and Tottenville’s 10307 both seeing just above 10 percent positivity rates.
Inwood’s 10034, with a 10.3 positivity score, was the greatest testing zip code in Manhattan.
The highest rate of positive county tests is in the northern suburbs, where Rockland and Orange are seeing spikes at a higher percentage than any borough as a whole, according to state statistics.
According to the state health department, more than 33,763 New Yorkers have been killed by COVID-19.
