Bayside COVID Rates Still At All-Time High As NYC Rates Plateau

Kayla Levy
·2 min read

BAYSIDE, QUEENS — As the wave of omicron-induced coronavirus cases begins to plateau in New York City, data shows that COVID-19 rates remain near all-time highs in Bayside.

During the seven-day period that ended on Sunday, over 1,270 people across Bayside tested positive for the coronavirus — an average positivity rate of about 27 percent across the neighborhood's three ZIP codes.

Those figures are on par with last week, when Bayside coronavirus rates skyrocketed to about 27 percent on-average, too — the highest case rate in the neighborhood since Aug. 2020, when the city began releasing local COVID data.

Here's a breakdown comparing the positivity rate in the neighborhood's three ZIP codes during the last week of Dec. and the first week of January:

11360 (Bay Terrace)

  • 26.96 percent positivity rate (7-day average as of Jan. 1)

  • 27.98 percent positivity rate (7-day average as of Jan. 9)

11361 (Bayside)

  • 26.96 percent positivity rate (7-day average as of Jan. 1)

  • 29 percent positivity rate (7-day average on Jan. 9)

11364 (Bayside Hills/Oakland Garden)

  • 29.13 percent positivity rate (7-day average as of Jan. 1)

  • 26.77 percent positivity rate (7-day average on Jan. 9)

While positivity rates are still inching up in Bay Terrace and Bayside, they are trending downwards in Bayside Hills, data shows, revealing what might be in the future for the neighborhood — and the city at large, where cases are beginning to slowly dip.

Local health experts have expressed cautious optimism that New York's omicron wave has reached or is nearing its peak, a point that Gov. Kathy Hochul reiterated on Tuesday.

Pointing to last weekend, Hochul said that COVID cases are "plateauing" in New York City; on Sunday, 32,236 people tested positive for COVID in NYC, a shocking number of cases that is still lower than the 50,000 cases per-day that the city was seeing for several weeks.

Hochul said New York City still leads state regions for hospitalizations, but downstate hospitals still have capacity.

As of Sunday, about 655 people were admitted to the hospital on average during the past seven day period — a drop from Jan. 4, when the city was averaging 883 cases per-week, but still far above levels that the city has seen in months.

As the wave continues, more free testing sites are opening up across Bayside; to find a city-run place to get tested for COVID-19, use the city's official map or visit a walk-in Health + Hospitals site. (To get vaccinated or boosted, visit vaccinefinder.nyc.gov.)

Patch editors Nick Garber and Matt Troutman contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on the Bayside-Douglaston Patch