New York issues statement on spread of ‘most contagious form of COVID-19 we know of to date’

The unprecedented infectiousness of XBB.1.5 sparked new calls for public caution Friday from New York City health officials, who announced that the last descendant of omicron, widely believed to be behind the latest wave of cases, now accounts for nearly three-quarters of all coronavirus. circulating in the country. five districts.

Calling the new strain “the most contagious COVID variant we know of today,” the city’s health department said that XBB.1.5 is currently responsible for 73% of all COVID cases sequenced in New York City. Omicron and its list of descendants, including XBB.1.5, are the only variant of concern still in circulation, public health officials say.

However, health data only reflects sequenced cases during the first year, and a relatively small proportion of positive cases undergo the exhaustive process required to highlight options (only 3% in the last week of available city data and on a downward trend). This means that the actual prevalence of XBB.1.5 is probably significantly higher than reported.

XBB.1.5 accounts for approximately 82.7% of COVID cases circulating in the New York region, which also includes New Jersey, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico, and could account for up to 88.2%, according to CDC data updated Friday. cases. This is above the base estimate of 72.7% and the high of 81.2% in last week’s report.

City health officials also noted that XBB.1.5 may be more likely to infect people who have been vaccinated or have already had COVID, a reality that Dr. Ashish Jha, head of the White House COVID Task Force, acknowledged last week.

As Jah puts it, if you haven’t had COVID since July or were last vaccinated before the bivalent update in September, “your protection against an XBB.1.5 infection. not so good.”

Re-infection data from the state supports this. The reinfection rate of 11.7 per 100,000 for New York the previous week is in line with the number of reinfections seen during the initial decline of the omicron wave in January 2022. The highest numbers are in Long Island, which has a reinfection rate of 15.8 per 100,000, reflecting mid-January 2022.

Data for New York State is incomplete and not disaggregated by region, but reflects an increase in new cases during December, which may reflect the actual occurrence of XBB.1.5, given that we know variants often circulate long before discovery. While breakthrough cases in the first week of the month declined in the latest state report, the breakthrough hospitalization rate increased, reflecting the lagging factor.

The New York City Health Department data, which differs slightly from the state data due to reporting and other factors, is in line with the apparent trend. The total average number of cases overall hit a recent spike in December, but COVID hospitalizations and deaths hit recent highs (see the latest New York City health department trends here).

CDC data shows that Manhattan is currently struggling the most with COVID. Over the past week, weekly cases in the area have increased by 13.41%, weekly deaths by 37.93%, and the test rate by 14.54%.

In comparison, the death rate in Queens decreased by 5.36%, while the incidence increased by only 2.87%. Testing in the area increased by 8.93%. Brooklyn also saw a downward trend in weekly death rates (down 3.23%) as well as cases (down 1.17%), while testing rose 7.03%. The Bronx is seeing a weekly rise in cases (up 4.81%), but deaths are down (by 2.94%), and COVID testing is up 12.19% in the last seven days per 100,000 people.

According to the CDC, Staten Island has seen the largest weekly declines in incidence rates (down 13.69%) and deaths (down 11.11%). His test speed is also up.

Whichever way you look at it, New York City’s data on these three metrics – cases, hospitalizations, and deaths – pales in comparison to the heights associated with the first micron wave, evidence, according to experts, of the power of vaccination, the bivalent vaccine. stepping up and proven mitigation measures such as wearing masks, washing hands and regular testing.

Face masks remain a recommendation in New York — all city, state, and federal public health agencies agree — regardless of vaccination status, when it comes to indoors and crowded outdoors, given the trends.

Encouragingly, the World Health Organization said this week that omicron XBB.1.5 does not appear to have any known mutations that could worsen the condition in humans, but added that it needed more data to draw conclusions about her seriousness.

The CDC said a new variant of COVID-19 is responsible for 75% of new cases.