Hell's Kitchen COVID Cases Rise Amid Delta's Spread: Data

HELL'S KITCHEN, NY — Hell's Kitchen is one of the city's most vaccinated neighborhoods, but that hasn't entirely spared it from the rise of the delta variant, data shows.

The number of people testing positive in the neighborhood has risen each week since July, according to Patch's analysis of city data. (The data is based on test results from residents of Hell's Kitchen's three ZIP codes, which also include slices of central Midtown.)

Cases and hospitalizations remain far below where they stood before the vaccine's rollout. During the week that ended Friday, the neighborhood's positivity rate was 2.2 percent, compared to 3.9 percent in early January.

Still, cases have risen sharply in Hell's Kitchen since early July, when the highly contagious delta variant began causing a coronavirus spike across the city.

The rise in Hell's Kitchen comes despite the neighborhood's high vaccination rates. Each one of the neighborhood's three ZIP codes is 100 percent vaccinated, according to city data, though that figure is based on imprecise population estimates.

It is unclear from the city data how many people who tested positive had already been vaccinated. The vaccines remain highly effective at preventing infections and hospitalizations, data shows: in some states, more than 99 percent of new hospitalizations have been in unvaccinated people.