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The city’s latest COVID-19 figures are “very worrisome” and “a warning sign if ever I’ve seen one,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday — as the Big Apple and state hit numbers not seen since May.
New York City’s positive-test rate was 2.88 percent Sunday, the highest daily number in at least three months, according to the mayor and statistics posted on the city’s Web site.
Meanwhile, the city’s latest seven-day rolling average of daily new coronavirus cases was 795 — the highest in six months.
As for the state, it’s latest daily positive-test rate was 3.09 percent — also its highest since May.
In Westchester County, the village of Port Chester was deemed a “yellow’’ danger zone amid a COVID-19 uptick four days ago — and reported a 14.66 percent positivity rate Monday, the state said.
“While New York’s COVID positivity remains the third-lowest in the nation, we continue to see increases in both new positive cases and hospital admissions, demonstrating we are not immune to the surge we are seeing throughout the rest of the nation,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement, which noted only Vermont and Maine are below the state in terms of positive-test rates.
“While we may be tired of COVID, it is not tired of us,’’ the governor said. “It’s clear that COVID fatigue and a lack of compliance leads to viral spread, so it’s more important than ever that as we prepare for winter, each of us stays smart.’’
The state’s 3.09 percent positivity rate Monday is triple what Cuomo said over the summer was its goal — 1 percent or below — and which New York had previously managed to hover around for weeks.
New York City schools would shut down hybrid learning and go all remote if the Big Apple’s positive-test rate hits 3 percent in a rolling seven-day average, the mayor said.
Its current rolling positive-test average is 2.3 percent, de Blasio said. The last time the city hit that figure was in June.
The threshold for taking more restrictive steps regarding businesses is a rolling positive-test average of 5 percent, said the mayor — as he called the latest figures “very worrisome.
“This is a warning sign if ever I’ve seen one,” de Blasio said.
He added that on Sunday, 92 coronavirus patients were admitted to local hospitals. The city’s daily threshold in terms of when more restrictions might be put on residents is 200 people hospitalized a day.
Coronavirus hospitalizations statewide were 1,548 as of midnight Monday — a jump from 1,444 the day before and from Friday’s 1,396.


