Upper East Side Tops COVID Transmission List: City Data

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Have you gotten that dreaded text message from a family member or friend informing you that they "just tested positive for COVID" in the past week?

If you have, and you live on the Upper East Side, you're not alone.

According to recent COVID-19 data, cases were up almost 125 percent in July across the city, reaching a peak of nearly 600 cases on July 31.

And in the top-five neighborhoods with the most new cases over the past week sits the Upper East Side, ahead of nearby neighborhoods like the Upper West Side, East Harlem, Astoria — and basically the rest of the city, according to Department of Health data.

That data shows that over the past week, the Upper East Side had 54 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people, much higher than the citywide case rate of 47.6.

Other neighborhoods with the same per-capita rate include Jamaica, Fresh Meadows and the Northeast Bronx.

At the top of the list sits Pelham - Throgs Neck, with 74 new cases per 100,000 people.

The uptick mirrors a nationwide summer increase in COVID-19 case seen in data published in late July by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The data shows COVID-19 hospitalizations were up 12 percent nationwide, and that emergency room visits and test positivity also increased in what health officials say is the greatest spike in COVID hospitalizations since last winter. Independent laboratories have also noted an increase in COVID-19 test positivity, CNN reported.

Importantly, the mild spike in cases is from an already low level of cases. Health experts expect the wave to be far less intense than in previous summers, and aren’t sure how long it will last.

Wastewater surveillance data suggests new COVID-19 cases are already leveling off, but much of the data public health officials have used to track trends was scaled back when the federal health emergency ended in May.

The last time so little data was available was in the early days of the pandemic, Caitlin Rivers, an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told CNN.

That makes it difficult to “know what lies ahead,” Rivers said. “So it may yet peter out.”
Rivers noted that it is encouraging the increase doesn’t appear to have been driven by the emergence of a new variant.

Some U.S. counties are seeing much higher rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations. Two counties in Texas saw a 250 percent increase with 14 new people hospitalized — a “high” rate given their small populations, according to the CDC classification.

Data shows that New York City hospitalizations may already be falling from their peak of 33 people hospitalized on July 27.

Other areas with higher numbers of cases are in southeast Texas, northeastern Oregon, central Oklahoma, Hawaii County, and southern Nebraska, as well as in Mohave County, Arizona, and Colquitt County, Georgia.

Additional reporting by Matt Troutman