Astoria, LIC COVID Rates Climb As Omicron Subvariant Spreads: Data

ASTORIA, QUEENS — It isn't deja vu: a contagious strain of the coronavirus is once again causing cases of COVID-19 to rise in Western Queens, and across the city.

This time, it's BA.2, a subvariant of omicron, which has already led to a virus wave in Europe and appears poised to do the same in the U.S. The subvariant already makes up nearly three-quartersof new U.S. cases, including 84 percent in New York state, according to the latest data.

In Astoria and Long Island City, testing data shows that cases began rising in mid-March and have continued climbing since then. In the week that ended on April 5, 266 residents of Astoria and Long Island City tested positive for COVID-19 — a 5.3 percent positivity rate.

That's roughly the same rate that the neighborhoods recorded in mid-December, during the early days of the first omicron wave that ultimately peaked weeks later, when Western Queens's positivity rates topped 30 percent.

In the most recent week where data is available, Long Island City's 11109 ZIP code had the highest positivity rate anywhere in the city, at 12.4 percent — though the sample size in the five-block ZIP code was small, with only 201 people tested.

The remaining Western Queens ZIP codes mostly ranked around the upper third of all ZIP codes citywide by positivity rate during that week.

Amid concern over the rising case numbers, city health officials announced last week that children under age 5 would need to continue wearing masks in preschools and daycares.

"We're seeing a slight uptick, and we want to be prepared — not panicked," Mayor Eric Adams said.

Still, Dr. Anthony Fauci and New York state's top health official have both predicted in recent weeks that BA.2 will not cause a large surge in cases, thanks to a combination of vaccine protection and natural immunity conferred from previous cases of COVID-19.