Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

N.Y.C. Dangerously Close to Second Wave, Mayor Says, as New Rules Loom

The spike in virus cases threatens the city’s recovery and could mean “a lot more restrictions,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

Video
bars
0:00/1:39
-0:00

transcript

‘We Can Stop a Second Wave,’ N.Y.C. Mayor Says

Coronavirus cases in New York are swiftly rising, and Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday that the city was “dangerously close” to a second wave that might mean more restrictions.

Unfortunately we’re also dealing with an immense challenge this morning because we see the presence of the coronavirus in the city and it’s trying to reassert itself. And we have to do everything in our power while we’re waiting for that help from the federal government to finally come, we need to do everything in our power to stop the coronavirus from reasserting in New York City. We have to stop a second wave from happening here. It is getting dangerously close. I’ve been telling you for weeks that we had the ability to stop a second wave. And for weeks, actually, our numbers were higher than we wanted, but they had leveled off. Now, unfortunately, we’re seeing a real growth in the positivity rate in the city. And that is dangerous. So we have one last chance to stop a second wave. It’s as simple as this. This is my message to all New Yorkers today: We can stop a second wave if we act immediately. But we have one last chance. So the more that people wear masks, practice social distancing, all those basics, the more we’re able to fight back that second wave. So I can’t give you a timeline. It will actually depend on how people respond to your reporting and everything else we put out there. If they take decisive action, it can make a huge difference. But it is important, I think, to lay out the danger in terms of new restrictions because I think it will make it very visual, very real to people what we’re up against. God forbid this continued and we had a full-blown second wave, it means a lot more restrictions. It means, unfortunately, it could mean even having to shut down parts of our economy again, which would be horrible for this city, horrible for the livelihoods of people.

Video player loading
Coronavirus cases in New York are swiftly rising, and Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday that the city was “dangerously close” to a second wave that might mean more restrictions.CreditCredit...Mark Abramson for The New York Times

[Read more on NYC school closings due to Covid-19]

As coronavirus cases surged to record highs across the country, New York City had hoped to keep the outbreak at bay and press ahead with its slow but steady recovery from the dark days of spring. But now, the forecast is turning more alarming.

The number of new infections is swiftly rising, with more than 1,000 cases identified in the city for five days in a row, a level that last occurred in May, according to the state’s Department of Health. Just a month ago, daily cases were typically in the 500 to 700 range.

Hospitalizations and death rates are a small fraction of what they were at the height of the outbreak in the spring, and case count comparisons can be tricky, given that much more testing is occurring now. The test positivity rate in New York City is still well below that in neighboring states.

But as cases continue to surge in New Jersey, Connecticut and upstate New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday that the city was dealing with an “immense” challenge.

“We have to stop a second wave from happening here,” Mr. de Blasio said during a news conference. “It is getting dangerously close.”

The city’s contact-tracing program has disclosed few details about which trends and patterns are contributing to transmission. But one city health official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share details from internal discussions, said some clusters had been traced to workplaces, including construction sites and offices.

City health officials and Mr. de Blasio’s aides have been discussing whether new citywide restrictions should be imposed, including a broader shutdown of nonessential businesses, if the seven-day average rate of positive test results climbs, and stays, above 3 percent. The seven-day average was 2.26 percent, according to the city’s health department.

The mayor said that further lockdowns were possible should New York City not regain control of the virus.

“God forbid this continued and we had a full-blown second wave,” he said. “It means a lot more restrictions. Unfortunately, it could mean even having to shut down parts of our economy again.”

It could also mean having to close schools, he said.

“There’s one last chance to stop that, and we need everyone to participate,” Mr. de Blasio said.

The mayor said he is watching three indicators to determine if the city is dealing with a “full-blown second wave”: the overall number of cases in New York City; the positivity rate, which should not breach 3 percent “on a sustained basis”; and the number of hospitalizations, which he doesn’t want to exceed 200 a day.

Staten Island has recently emerged as a particular area of concern, with the positivity rate in the neighborhood of Tottenville exceeding 6 percent. Several other neighborhoods have rates surpassing 3 percent.

There are some signs that Mr. de Blasio may be reluctant to impose new restrictions, which would require the acquiescence of the governor.

The mayor has previously said that he favored halting indoor dining if the seven-day positivity rate reached 2 percent — a threshold that has already been crossed without his taking any action.

On Monday, the mayor would only say that it was time to re-evaluate the wisdom of allowing limited indoor dining.

Image
New York City currently allows limited indoor dining. The mayor said on Monday that it was time to re-evaluate that rule.Credit...Desiree Rios for The New York Times

The city health official said mayoral aides and health department officials were discussing whether the mayor should begin urging New Yorkers to cut back on visiting friends or resume working from home if they can — a recommendation that would hinder the return of workers to Midtown Manhattan office buildings, which are showing a few tentative signs of life.

In a news conference on Monday, Mr. Cuomo said that state officials are monitoring the numbers but are not taking any immediate action.

“This is going to be the constant for the foreseeable future,” the governor said. “Every couple of days we’ll say, ‘This place became a microcluster, this place is no longer a microcluster.’ ”

Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, also reiterated that the effectiveness of any state restrictions would be dependent on local enforcement — which he has criticized in the past — as well as on individuals’ compliance with social distancing and mask rules.

“We’re tired of Covid, but Covid isn’t tired of us,” he said. “People have to be rigorous and disciplined about their behavior.”

He also rejected the idea that the state was seeing a “surge” in cases, noting that other states have far higher rates of infection.

One epidemiologist, Denis Nash, a professor at the City University of New York School of Public Health, said that while transmission in New York City was increasing — and had been for some time — the increase in hospitalizations and deaths was lower than expected.

He said he believed it was too soon to return to lockdowns or mass closures of workplaces or schools.

“We haven’t gotten to that place yet,” he said, though he added that it might make sense to reconsider the decision to allow indoor dining, an activity regarded as relatively high-risk.

At stake is much of New York City’s recovery from the pandemic, which had a devastating impact in the early months, killing tens of thousands, sickening many more and severely undermining the local economy. The city has since become a national model for curbing the outbreak, bringing children back to public schools for in-person classes, allowing limited indoor dining and reopening museums, hair salons and gyms.

New York had already been contending with localized spikes in some neighborhoods, including those with many ultra-Orthodox Jewish residents, leading Mr. Cuomo and Mr. de Blasio to adopt new restrictions in those areas.

But given the course of the outbreak nationally, it was not entirely clear whether the broader increases across the city could be traced to those neighborhoods.

In New York City, the numbers are up in all five boroughs, with 1,156 new cases reported on Sunday.

“This is going to be a really key week,” said City Councilman Mark Levine of Manhattan, who is chairman of the council’s Health Committee.

Mr. Levine said he feared that “the window is closing to prevent much more aggressive shutdown measures” and that if the case count kept climbing, the city would most likely end up in a lockdown reminiscent of the spring.

Robyn Gershon, an epidemiology professor at the New York University School of Global Public Health, said she was “cautiously optimistic” that New York City would be able to bring transmission down and praised Governor Cuomo’s “microcluster strategy” of color-coding neighborhoods — with the colors corresponding to restrictions.

Mr. Nash, the epidemiology professor, said that encouraging news about the vaccine should be incorporated into City Hall’s advice to New Yorkers: With a vaccine on the horizon, they should redouble their efforts to wear masks and socially distance.

“The message should be: ‘We’ve gotten this far, we just have to keep it going for a little longer.’ We need to hold out for a promising and safe and effective vaccine,” he said.

In New Jersey, Gov. Philip D. Murphy, noting that hoped-for vaccines are inching closer to approval, announced new coronavirus restrictions on Monday, rolling back his reopening strategy to confront a statewide infection rate that has reached levels not seen since the pandemic ravaged cities and towns across the Northeast.

Mr. Murphy, a Democrat, said early Monday that the rules were designed to “shave at the edges,” without returning to a strict statewide shutdown like the one enacted in March.

Under the new restrictions, which begin Thursday, restaurants and nightclubs across the state must close to indoor customers at 10 p.m., and no one may be seated directly at the bar.

High school sports teams are not permitted to participate in out-of-state tournaments, but college athletes may still travel.

Mr. Murphy said he would continue to consider additional targeted restrictions on nonessential businesses.

“Let’s focus, folks, on these upcoming six months,” Mr. Murphy said. “This is not forever and always. We basically have a six-month window to beat the fatigue back and beat the virus into the ground.”

Jesse McKinley and Tracey Tully contributed reporting.

Joseph Goldstein covers health care in New York, following years of criminal justice and police reporting for the Metro desk. He also spent a year reporting on Afghanistan from The Times’s Kabul bureau.  More about Joseph Goldstein

Dana Rubinstein is a reporter on the Metro desk covering New York City politics. Before joining The Times in 2020, she spent nine years at the publication now known as Politico New York. More about Dana Rubinstein

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: New Restrictions Loom As Possible 2nd Wave Is ‘Dangerously Close’. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT