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COURIER LIFE, APRIL 1-7, 2022
BY JESSICA PARKS
The Big Apple saw a slight
rise in coronavirus cases last
week — with a daily average
of 960 confirmed cases —
though nowhere close to the
number of infections seen
last month after a huge spike
due to the Omicron variant,
according to city data.
An average of 2.31 percent
of people tested positive for
COVID-19 between March 20
and March 26, with ZIP codes
in Manhattan’s Tribeca and
Battery Park City topping
the charts with seven-day
averages of 9.26 percent positive
and 6.79 percent positive
respectively, according to the
statistics released by the city
Department of Health and
Mental Hygiene.
Two Brooklyn ZIP codes
trail shortly behind Battery
Park City, leading in the top
five city ZIP Codes with the
highest seven-day averages
for percent of positive tests,
with Carroll Gardens, Red
Hook and Cobble Hill seeing
6.53 percent positive and
Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO
and Downtown Brooklyn reporting
6.13 percent positive.
Brooklyn reported the
second-highest transmission
rate of the five boroughs over
the last seven days, with 97
new cases per 100,000 people,
which is half of the transmission
rate in Manhattan of
184.26 new cases per 100,000
people.
While the city has seen a
slight rise in infections last
week, credited to the Omicron
variant as city data
shows 100 percent of the
new infections were from
the variant, hospitalization
rates and deaths have continued
to decrease, with 13 people
being hospitalized within
14 days of diagnosis and four
deaths reported over the
seven-day span.
Health experts describe
the Omicron variant to be
highly transmissible with
milder, quicker to treat
symptoms the deadly Delta
variant, which rocked the
city last fall, reversing the
city’s phased reopening,
though Omicron did cause
a high hospital surge as it is
highly contagious.
Vaccinations in the city
are still continuing to grow
with more and more city
dwellers getting the life-saving
jab totaling a whopping
78 percent of the city’s population
fully vaccinated, but
the most populous borough,
Brooklyn, is in last place for
the percentage of its population
receiving two jabs.
Queens leads the boroughs
with 85 percent of its population
being fully vaccinated,
followed by Manhattan with
82 percent. However, Brooklyn
has the second-highest
population of fully vaccinated
1,821,460 people getting
both shots.
Eighteen city zip codes
report 99 percent of their
populations are fully vaccinated
with the only Brooklyn
neighborhood in that
category being the 11220 zip
code in Sunset Park. Population
percentages for the number
vaccinated is capped at 99
percent because population
numbers need to be updated
from the 2020 US Census.
to make sure their bodies were
respected and their families
were treated with the dignity
they deserve.”
According to city data, the
neighborhood surrounding Interfaith
has a case rate per
100,000 more than double that of
Brooklyn and of New York City
— one in three people there has
been diagnosed with COVID so
far, with a much higher death
rate than either the borough or
the city as a whole.
Hospitals in the most-affected
neighborhoods have
been underfunded “for years,”
Achong added. The lack of adequate
resources and poorer
health outcomes were not created
by the pandemic, just made
worse.
“Because we are given less
with everything, COVID ripped
through the seams of our community,”
she said.
Citywide, about 407 of every
100,000 people died from COVID.
In Brooklyn, that number
is 417 out of 100,000. In Brownsville,
where Brookdale stands,
the death rate skyrockets, to 720
deaths per 100,000 people.
As mask and vaccine mandates
in the city are rolled back,
resources at One Brooklyn hospitals
are still strained. As of
March 23, only four of Brookdale’s
39 intensive care unit
beds were available, with just 20
of the hospital’s total 239 hospital
beds available. At Interfaith,
twelve out of thirteen ICU beds
were filled.
According to the most recently
available data aggregated
by The New York Times,
Brookdale was treating 11 COVID
patients and Interfaith
three. Across the city, cases are
increasing, and while data currently
shows hospitalizations
and death on a downswing,
those numbers are often inaccurate,
as there is a delay in hospitals
reporting those numbers.
Oftentimes, residents were
the last person to see a patient
before they died, said Salome
Wiredu, a pediatric resident
at Brookdale. They came in on
their days off to check in on patients
and held up phones so
they could FaceTime with residents
unable to visit.
“To those of you who lost
loved ones, we want you to know
that they are not forgotten,”
Wiredu said. “And we want you
to know that we will never forget
them. We remember every
face, every name and every moment.”
The current
state of the
pandemic
New data shows slight COVID
uptick across Brooklyn