Manhattan's COVID risk levels move from low to medium: Here's what health experts recommend

In late February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a new way for counties to judge the status of the pandemic in their area. Those “COVID-19 Community Levels” are meant to dictate when to return public health recommendations such as indoor mask wearing.

What some New Yorkers may not realize is that the CDC only updates this risk assessment once a week — every Thursday evening. It looks at specific cutoffs for cases per 100,000 residents, new hospitalizations and hospital bed capacity recorded over the past seven days. The CDC then labels a county or borough as low risk (green), medium risk (yellow) or high risk (orange).

Manhattan has been green for weeks since the new rubric launched. Yet there is a hack for any keen person who can’t wait for a once-a-week update and wants to track these seven-day rates in real-time. Type in your county into the Community Levels webpage and scroll down.

Residents of Manhattan — or New York County — would have noticed on Wednesday that their borough was now reporting more than 200 cases per 100,000 residents. This case rate means that Manhattan has technically moved from being low risk to medium risk.

The shift threatens to scupper the rollback of city and state health precautions, but also comes at an inconvenient time for the pandemic response. Mayor Eric Adams, for example, had promised to remove mask mandates in childcare settings for the city’s youngest by April 4th — but only if risk levels remained low. Earlier this month, Congress opted to pull $15.6 billion in funding for immediate pandemic health care, meaning that the Biden administration can no longer buy or reimburse tests and medicine such as the COVID pills or vaccines. In the aftermath, some leaders in Congress continue to seek a standalone bill for these medical funds but are hitting resistance.

Health data from overseas shows protection against severe disease is waning in the face of omicron for people with only two shots, emphasizing the need of initial booster shots for those eligible.

Similar concerns apply to unvaccinated people relying on immunity from a prior infection, said Dr. Bruce Farber, the chief of public health and epidemiology at Northwell Health and the chief of infectious diseases at North Shore University Hospital and LIJ Medical Center.

“We know people are not going to have lifelong immunity,” Farber said. He added that people who had BA.1 infections over the winter should have protection from BA.2. But as Gothamist reported on Sunday, this status might only apply to one in five New York City residents. Farber and other health experts recommend booster shots for unvaccinated New Yorkers who were infected prior to omicron’s arrival in December. This guidance is being lost amid a debate over fourth shots — or second boosters — for people older than 50. 

WNYC host Janae Pierre speaks with Health and Science Editor Nsikan Akpan about what health experts recommend for New Yorkers based on their age, vaccination status and prior infection.