Groups of people line up in Times Square in New York City on December 5, 2021 to be tested for Covid-19.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
New York City’s Covid-19 test positive rates doubled in just three days, Dr. Jay Varma, a top health advisor to Mayor Bill de Blasio, on Thursday.
“Um, we’ve never seen that in #NYC,” he tweeted.
The positivity rates increase with the spread of the Omicron variant. According to CDC data released Wednesday, New York and New Jersey are the two states with the fastest spreading of the variant. The data shows that 13.1% of cases in the CDC region, which includes New York and New Jersey, are omicrons, compared with a national average of 2.9%.
From December 9th to December 12th, the percentage of positive tests in the city rose from 3.9% to 7.8%. “This is # SARSCoV2, which unlike any previous variant bypasses both vaccine and virus-induced immunity to infection,” added Varma.
However, he found that around 67,000 PCR tests are performed per day in New York City, which is higher per capita than many other towns or cities across the country. In addition, the data reported by the city has a delay of around three days, which means that current positivity rates could be higher and data from the previous days may still be adjusted.
