Astoria, LIC COVID-19 Rates Elevated Heading Into Holidays

ASTORIA, QUEENS — Hundreds of Western Queens residents have been infected and dozens have been hospitalized with COVID-19 in recent weeks, as the city and nation have experienced an increase in virus cases heading into the holiday season.

During the week that ended on Dec. 20, the most recent for which data is available, 349 residents of Astoria and Long Island City tested positive for COVID-19 — a 15.8 percent positivity rate, according to city data.

That's higher than where the neighborhoods stood in late October, when their combined positivity was 11.7 percent.

Virus rates across Western Queens and the city as a whole have largely risen since around late October, the testing data shows.

That increase was largely mirrored across the country — though national virus rates have leveled off in recent days, with cases "no longer rising like they were in early December," the New York Times reported Thursday.

Some states, especially the Northeast, were still seeing a "troubling" rise in cases, the Times reported.

In New York City, the seven-day average of new cases reached 3,670 as of Tuesday — well above the numbers seen earlier this fall, but cases appear to have plateaued within the last three weeks, according to Health Department data.

A total of 99 people in Astoria and Long Island City's ZIP codes were hospitalized with COVID-19 between Nov. 12 and Dec. 9, the most recent period for which the city has reported data. No deaths were recorded during that span.

About 95 percent of residents in those ZIP codes have completed their first vaccination series, though only a small fraction have received their bivalent booster dose, the data shows.

To guard against COVID, as well as the flu and the respiratory virus R.S.V., city officials urged New Yorkers earlier this month to keep wearing masks in public indoor settings.

"The holiday season is about togetherness and there is a way to gather safely – even as respiratory viruses in our city are unusually high," Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan said in a statement.

"It starts with protecting yourself. Vaccination and boosters are critical but so are common sense precautions like masking when indoors or among crowds and staying home if you don’t feel well."