As Yet Another Wave of Covid Looms, New Yorkers Ask: Should I Worry?
The Omicron subvariant BA.2 is causing an increase in infections, especially in Manhattan. But hospitalizations have yet to rise.
Joseph Goldstein and
Driven by an Omicron subvariant, Covid-19 cases have been ticking up steadily across Manhattan, Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, threatening New York City with a fifth wave of coronavirus cases just weeks after the city lifted many mask and vaccine requirements.
The city is registering about 1,500 new cases a day and a positivity rate of nearly 3 percent, both figures more than double what they were a month ago. In Manhattan, where the last wave also first emerged, the positivity rate is above 6 percent in some neighborhoods.
In another potentially worrisome indicator, the prevalence of fevers across the city — which can offer a forewarning of Covid trends — has reached levels last seen at some of the worst points of the pandemic, according to data from internet-connected thermometers.
And anecdotal signs of spreading infection are evident across the region. On Broadway, the actors Matthew Broderick and Daniel Craig have recently tested positive, as have New Jersey’s governor and at least three members of the New York City Council.
“We may be done with the virus, but the virus isn’t done with us,” Brad Lander, the city’s comptroller, said after he tested positive last week.
The Omicron subvariant BA.2, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimates makes up 84 percent of cases in the New York region, is even more contagious than its predecessor.
But so far it has not shown the same explosive speed as the earlier form of Omicron, which in late December and early January propelled cases in New York City past 40,000 per day. Instead, BA.2 is causing a slowly but steadily rising tide of illness. It has yet to produce a rise in hospitalizations, and deaths remain low.
As the subvariant spreads, city health officials expect the entire city to enter the medium risk category in the next two weeks, a threshold that Manhattan has already reached, they said Wednesday at a coronavirus briefing for Mayor Eric Adams. Officials are not expressing alarm, but they are preparing to increase the number of city-run testing sites from the 130 now operating, if necessary, and to distribute some six million free at-home tests.
Data shows that new infections have predominantly been among adults under 35, who are less likely to be hospitalized. If the subvariant spreads more widely among older people and in nursing homes, it could have more serious impact. Citywide, 83 percent of people 65 and older are fully vaccinated, and 56 percent have had one booster shot.
Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, an epidemiology professor at Columbia University, predicted there would be an “uptick” in hospitalizations but not of the magnitude seen earlier this year when Omicron packed emergency rooms, stretched hospital staffs nearly to the breaking point and killed more than 4,000 people.
“I don’t think this is going to be like the prior Omicron surge,” she said.
Health experts point to several factors that make them think that there will be fewer hospitalizations this time.
For one, some 800,000 New Yorkers have received a booster shot since the Omicron wave’s peak, and more doses of antiviral pills are flowing into the city than before, though the most effective one — Paxlovid — would quickly be in short supply if cases rise precipitously.
Epidemiologists also note that in addition to high vaccination rates, millions of New Yorkers — by some estimates, over 40 percent of the city — were infected by Omicron and now are likely to have strong protection against BA.2.