Hell's Kitchen COVID Rates Tick Up Amid Citywide Rise: Data

HELL'S KITCHEN, NY — Coronavirus cases have risen across the city in recent weeks as the holidays approach — including in Hell's Kitchen, where positivity rates have risen in November, according to city data.

Through the seven-day period ending Friday, the positivity rate across the neighborhood's three ZIP codes was 1.22 percent — the highest it has been since late September.

A total of 96 people tested positive between Nov. 13-19 in the 10018, 10019 and 10036 ZIP codes, according to the Health Department.

That's in line with a trend observed citywide, where about 6,400 people tested positive during that period — the highest seven-day average since mid-April, NBC reported.

The trend has been more severe in other parts of the state, like Western New York and the Finger Lakes region — a pattern that Gov. Kathy Hochul attributed to residents' refusal to get vaccinated.

"At some point if the numbers don’t start on a downward trend, we’re going to have to talk about larger protocols,” Hochul said last week. "I truly hope the community at large will listen to this because it doesn’t have to be this way."

Vaccine resistance has been close to a non-issue in Hell's Kitchen, meanwhile: all three of the neighborhood's ZIP codes remain listed as 99 percent vaccinated, according to the city. (The true figure may be slightly lower, since the city's population totals do not include Hell's Kitchen's population growth since the last census.)