NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – New York City is expected to hit a “high” COVID-19 risk alert level in days, Mayor Eric Adams said Monday as his administration announced efforts to “bolster” the city’s preparedness for future virus waves.
The city reached the “medium” risk level just two weeks ago. A high risk would mean there’s “high” community spread that’s putting “substantial pressure” on the health care system.
The city’s health commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, issued a commissioner’s advisory urging New Yorkers to wear masks in all indoor public settings. Adams said he “strongly recommends that all New Yorkers mask up in public indoor settings to protect themselves and others.”
The mayor announced the city is “bolstering” its COVID-19 preparedness “as the city prepares to potentially hit a high-alert level in the coming days.”
The effort includes distributing 16.5 million additional at-home COVID-19 tests and 1 million masks at schools, libraries, cultural institutions and community organizations across all five boroughs.
Daily cases in the city are increasing and are now averaging more than 3,400 per day, according to Health Department data. The city’s seven-day positivity rate is "stable" at 9.11%.
Dr. Jay Varma, an epidemiologist who served as a pandemic adviser to former Mayor Bill de Blasio, said the city’s health care system is still on solid footing but that people need to think about changing their behavior.
“Unfortunately, we continue to see that this virus is a very wily and formidable threat,” Varma said Monday.
Varma said that over the past two months, infection rates have been rising in New York and “don’t seem to be coming down at all.”
“There’s a real threat of this,” he said. “This virus keeps finding new ways to evolve, so I think people need to be aware that the threat is not zero. In fact, I would argue it’s much higher than that.”
At a high risk level, the city’s new alert system recommends a mask mandate for all indoor public settings and all crowded outdoor spaces.
The city has yet to implement the mask recommendations spelled out for the medium level in the city’s alert system, which urges people to wear a mask in public indoor settings where the vaccine status of other people is unknown.
“And that’s one of the things that worries me about the Health Department matrix is that if the mayor is not going to act on it, then I’m not sure what the purpose of the matrix was to begin with,” Varma said.
Ideally, the city would bring back mask and vaccination requirements for indoor spaces, Varma said—but he knows the political reality in the five boroughs and statewide.
“I do worry that across the country, and even here in New York, you don’t see much interest from elected officials in sounding the alarm on COVID,” he said.
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