Covid positive case rates soar above 20 per cent in New York City

A month after Joe Biden declared the pandemic was over, cases are on the rise in New York

Covid positivity case rates have soared above 20 per cent in parts of New York, as public health officials warn of a looming winter spike in cases.

A rolling seven-day average of positive cases in Hells Kitchen in Manhattan hit 22.5 per cent on Wednesday, before slipping back to 17 per cent on Thursday, according to New York City data.

In Brooklyn, Richmond Hill recorded a 20 per cent positive case rate, and more than a dozen other city neighbourhoods had 15 per cent or higher positive case rates.

Citywide transmission rates reached 173 cases per 100,000 people on Thursday, an increase of 13 per cent from a week before.

Of the five city boroughs, Staten Island had by far the highest number of per capita cases with 241 per 100,000 people, according to the latest figures.

Two new Omicron subvariants that experts say can bypass existing vaccines are spreading rapidly in New York, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.

The CDC estimates that the BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 strains now make up 20 per cent of new cases across the its New York region, which includes New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. That’s the highest proportion of any region.

Data from Health and Human Services also shows a recent increase in hospitalisations in the New York region.

The president’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci recently warned that emerging strains could lead to another winter spike in cases. He told CBS News last week that antibody drugs used to help immunocompromised patients may not work against the new variants.

Only around 7 per cent of eligible Americans have received the latest Omicron-targeting vaccine, figures show (PA Wire)

However, updated booster shots targeting the BA.5 variant from Pfizer and Moderna could offer some protection from the new strains, Dr Fauci said.

“The bad news is that there’s a new variant that’s emerging and that has qualities or characteristics that could evade some of the interventions we have. But, the somewhat encouraging news is that it’s a BA.5 sublineage, so there are almost certainly going to be some cross protection that you can boost up,” Dr Fauci told CBS News.

As of last week, around 15 million Americans had received their second BA.5-slaying booster shot since it received approval in September.

Dr Fauci said that figure, which represents around 7 per cent of eligible Americans, was frustratingly low.

In September, President Joe Biden declared the pandemic was over, prompting criticism from public health experts who warned the message could complicate efforts to battle rising winter case numbers.