‘Everything seems so difficult’: Variants threaten NYC progress on virus

Since the peak of the holiday spike in early January, New York has seen a sharp drop in the number of people testing positive for the coronavirus each day, as has the state and the nation.

But the decline has not been as dramatic as it has been nationally, and community transmission in the city remains high, with around 3,200 new probable and confirmed cases reported daily. As more contagious variants spread, the city’s positive test rate has declined only slowly, to more than 7.1% this week from 8% two weeks ago, according to city data.

“It all seems so tenuous and fragile in so many ways,” said Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, an epidemiologist at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. “While overall there is a decrease, it is moving incredibly slowly, in some ways slower than the decrease that has been noted in the rest of the country.”

Two studies that were published online this week – but have yet to be peer reviewed – said a new variant in New York City, first detected in samples collected in November, began to spread. This variant, called B.1.526, shared similar characteristics to variants found in South Africa and Brazil that have been shown to weaken vaccine effectiveness.

At this point, it’s unclear what the new variant means in the long run, as officials don’t yet know the real impact it will have.

“For now, we just have to see this as a variant of interest – something interesting, which we have to follow and follow,” Dr Jay Varma, senior adviser to the mayor’s office, told a conference. release Thursday. “But that doesn’t change our public health problem.”

The existence of variants may require people who have been fully vaccinated to receive a third booster injection by the end of the year. More importantly, it highlights the need to get more people vaccinated as soon as possible.

How many variants are found in the city?

Officials were only publicly tracking the most contagious B.1.1.7 variant – first discovered in Britain – which they said accounted for around 6.2% of cases in the second week of February, on Wednesday. .

This variant was first detected in New York City in early January and has spread. Between Jan. 11 and Jan. 31, it was detected in 2.7 percent of sequenced cases in New York City, according to data released weekly by the city. In the first week of February, that number jumped to 7%.

But the two studies published online this week, by researchers at Caltech and Columbia University, suggest that more variants have spread across the city. Besides discovering the new variant, these researchers discovered one case of the variant that first appeared in South Africa and two cases of the variant that originated in Brazil that had not yet been publicly reported by the city or the State.

City officials said that this new research had not been shared with the city prior to its release.

Across the country, researchers have mainly focused on the variant first discovered in Britain, as it is spreading widely. One study found that B.1.1.7 cases doubled about every 10 days. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted that the B.1.1.7 variant, which is estimated to be 35 to 45 percent more transmissible, could become the main source of infection across the country in March.

How does the city do with the vaccinations?

One encouraging sign regarding the rollout is that there has been a sharper drop in the rate of positive tests among New Yorkers over 75 than among New Yorkers as a whole, likely due to vaccinations. In addition, emergency room admissions of people over 65 have stabilized and are gradually declining.

Epidemiologists say these figures underscore the importance of targeting vaccinations on people most likely to be hospitalized and die from the virus, especially as the variant first detected in Britain becomes more common in the city.

As of Tuesday, the city had partially or fully vaccinated around 1 million people, which is a milestone for the deployment. Of these, around half a million people had received both vaccines.

But vaccine rollout has been uneven across racial groups, with those hardest hit by the virus being vaccinated at lower rates. Although nearly a quarter of New Yorkers identify as black, for example, blacks have only received 12% of vaccinations, according to city statistics.

In addition, about a quarter of people who have been fully vaccinated in New York City do not live in the city, but outside, according to the data. It is not known how many of them qualified because they work in the city or were vaccinated at state sites, and how many broke the rules.

The pace of vaccination in recent days has also been slower than the city would like, as supply shortages were compounded by delivery delays caused by inclement weather. Over the past week, the city administered about 30,000 vaccines per day, up from a peak of 60,000 doses per day the week before.

New York State ranks down in terms of the percentage of people in a state who have received at least one vaccine, according to the New York Times Vaccine Tracker.

Should the state really reopen?

As the number of cases and the positivity rate trended down to pre-holiday levels, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo reopened a faucet of activity: dining in New York, the big sports stadiums and arenas with a capacity of 10,000 people or more. , city cinemas and wedding venues, all at reduced capacity and with other security measures in place.

Mr Cuomo said he didn’t want to keep things closed just because the variations were there.

“On a daily basis, we review the data and calibrate it,” said Gareth Rhodes, member of Mr. Cuomo’s coronavirus task force. “You have to be very, very careful, but also recognize that you cannot keep the economy closed indefinitely.”

But the experts are worried. They note that with the advent of variants, it is more important than ever to keep community transmission at bay.

“It doesn’t make epidemiological sense to me,” said Dr. Denis Nash, epidemiologist at the City University of New York. “I see how that makes economic sense, on the one hand. In the short term, this will help the bottom line of restaurant workers and employ people. But it also puts employees at risk, and it defeats the larger goal, which is to get the vaccine into as many arms as possible before the virus catches them.

Dr El-Sadr added: “I don’t think the time has come to reopen further. I think it’s time to curl up and focus on expanding immunization.

Dr Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, argued in a new article that vaccinations should be accelerated and more targeted at people over 65 who run the greatest risk of death as a variant originally. in Britain is taking root.

The race, disease experts say, is now between the variants and the vaccine, and the surest way to win is to reduce transmission as much as possible while still vaccinating as quickly as possible.

“A major spike in cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the near future remains a strong possibility,” the newspaper says.

Joseph Goldstein contributed reporting.