The highly contagious Delta variant now accounts for 94% of New York City’s active COVID-19 cases, but for the first time in weeks, the transmission rates along with other indicators have started to stabilize, says the new data released by the city’s health department in its latest update.
According to the statement from the health department, it only took the Delta variant 14 days to snatch the top most common COVID-19 variant in the city. It overtook the so-called NY strain, earning the “high transmission” label in all five counties of NYC. The announcement also explained that the transmission has eased from the 100,000 people getting infected everyday down to just 3% in the past week.
The CDC’s “high transmission” label for the Delta variant also holds true for all but one of New Jersey’s 21 counties, as well as nearly 87% of all US counties. It is especially disturbing as Delta now also accounts for more than 95% of COVID-positive samples tested across the state of New York and nearly 94% of New Jersey. The state of New York has reported to have never had a single digit death in a single day for the past couple of weeks.
In an attempt to boost vaccination efforts before school reopens on September 13, Mayor Bill de Blasio offered a huge new incentive for New York City PTAs. He also released a mandate that all students and staff participating in high-risk sports like football, volleyball, basketball, wrestling, lacrosse, rugby and bowling must be vaccinated.
Good News! NYC COVID-19 Transmission is Going Down
Despite the rampant transmissions reported, NYC is seeing some light as the new data released by the city’s health department is starting to look better.
According to reports from NBC New York, the new confirmed plus probable cases have gone down 11% versus a week prior. Though the seven-day rolling averages for COVID-positive tests and hospitalizations remain higher than the 28-day averages, the doubled vaccination efforts in New York seem to be working – for now. The doctors believe it will take a few weeks to see significant differences and to level off the recent surge.
State data shows need for ‘booster shots’
Nevertheless, there’s also some bad news as the new state data this week showed that the vaccines were already starting to lose their effectiveness at preventing infection with the delta variant. However, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is yet to approve the booster shot plan, even though the federal health officials have already made recommendations to administer the third shot to fully immunized Americans. starting the third week of September.
