NYC COVID Cases Fall 70% In New Year, Data Shows

NEW YORK CITY — A feared repeat of past COVID-19 winter explosions has turned out to be more of a fizzle, data shows.

Daily cases fell roughly 70 percent since Jan. 1, according to data.

And it’s the only critical viral measurement that’s falling — all the city’s major COVID-19 indicators, from positivity to deaths to hospitalizations, are officially “decreasing,” the city’s health department reported.

The declines coincide with Mayor Eric Adams’ move last week to lift a vaccine mandate for city workers. He warned, however, that the virus and mandates could return.

“Now that we're seeing a normalization of COVID, there may be another time that we are going to have to do mandates again because these viruses are not going away,” he told Caribbean Power Jam’s “The Reset Show” last week.

“We're dealing with a whole new environment of what we are fighting against some of these viruses.”

Past winters have brought significant surges of COVID-19 cases, and health officials feared it would happen this year.

But aside from a minor uptick, the typical cold weather spike has so far bypassed New York City and elsewhere in the U.S.

A 92 percent decline in daily COVID-19 cases since the omicron variant struck prompted President Joe Biden’s decision to let the nation’s public health emergency for the pandemic end May 11..

Some prominent city health experts worry that it’s too early to let pandemic measures lapse.

Jay Varma, who worked as senior health adviser under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, called himself “shocked” that Adams would end the city worker vaccination mandate.

“What I most fear is that the adult vaccination rate will now decline much more rapidly over time, increasing the number of New Yorkers infected, hospitalized, and dying from COVID-19,” he wrote. “When the City removes its mandate, private sector employers and possibly higher education institutions will follow.”