The Big Apple saw a slight rise in coronavirus cases last week — with a daily average of 960 confirmed cases — though nowhere close to the number of infections seen last month after a huge spike due to the Omicron variant, according to city data.
An average of 2.31 percent of people tested positive for COVID-19 between March 20 and March 26, with ZIP codes in Manhattan’s Tribeca and Battery Park City topping the charts with seven-day averages of 9.26 percent positive and 6.79 percent positive respectively, according to the statistics released by the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Two Brooklyn ZIP codes trail shortly behind Battery Park City, leading in the top five city ZIP Codes with the highest seven-day averages for percent of positive tests, with Carroll Gardens, Red Hook and Cobble Hill seeing 6.53 percent positive and Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO and Downtown Brooklyn reporting 6.13 percent positive.
Brooklyn reported the second-highest transmission rate of the five boroughs over the last seven days, with 97 new cases per 100,000 people, which is half of the transmission rate in Manhattan of 184.26 new cases per 100,000 people.
While the city has seen a slight rise in infections last week, credited to the Omicron variant as city data shows 100 percent of the new infections were from the variant, hospitalization rates and deaths have continued to decrease, with 13 people being hospitalized within 14 days of diagnosis and four deaths reported over the seven-day span.
Health experts describe the Omicron variant to be highly transmissible with milder, quicker to treat symptoms the deadly Delta variant, which rocked the city last fall, reversing the city’s phased reopening, though Omicron did cause a high hospital surge as it is highly contagious.
Vaccinations in the city are still continuing to grow with more and more city dwellers getting the life-saving jab totaling a whopping 78 percent of the city’s population fully vaccinated, but the most populous borough, Brooklyn, is in last place for the percentage of its population receiving two jabs. Queens leads the boroughs with 85 percent of its population being fully vaccinated, followed by Manhattan with 82 percent. However, Brooklyn has the second-highest population of fully vaccinated 1,821,460 people getting both shots.
Eighteen city zip codes report 99 percent of their populations are fully vaccinated with the only Brooklyn neighborhood in that category being the 11220 zip code in Sunset Park. Population percentages for the number vaccinated is capped at 99 percent because population numbers need to be updated from the 2020 US Census.
