COVID-19
New York City raises COVID alert level to medium
New York City on Monday raised its COVID alert level from low to medium, meaning some public health rules could be reimposed.
The risk level was raised because the city is now averaging more than 200 daily new cases per 100,000 people, city Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, MD, said Monday at a news conference, according to The New York Post.
“With COVID-19 cases rising, NYC has entered the Medium risk alert level,” he said. “As a practical matter, what this means for New Yorkers is that they must exercise even greater caution than they have the last few weeks.”
The city has been averaging 2,489 daily new cases over the last week, a big jump from the 600 daily new cases from early March, The New York Times reported. But hospitalizations and deaths are down slightly over the last month.
The medium or yellow level means that people should “consider” wearing face masks indoors in public places and “upgrade to higher-quality masks, including KN95, KF94, N95, or a cloth mask on top of a surgical mask.”