Mayor Bill de Blasio reported a rising coronavirus infection rate among young adults on Monday, a day after the city boasted finally reaching a day with zero coronavirus-related deaths four months into the pandemic.
The rising infection rate is mostly taking place among 20- to 29-year-olds, although the infection rate is also going up among New Yorkers in their 30s, following a pattern occurring in southern states like Texas, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Arizona last month. In many of these states, nearly half of all new cases in June appeared in people younger than 40.
De Blasio said that the city will “double down” on its effort to educate young people that they are not impervious to the virus through digital media messages and a night of mobile action outreach, mask giveaways and running mobile testing vans. More details on what the “digital media message” and night of mobile action will look like will be released “in the coming days,” de Blasio spokesperson Avery Cohen wrote in an email.
Although health officials warn the virus is most deadly for people 65 and over, young people can still become ill and die from the virus. In order to mitigate the spread of the virus, de Blasio reminded New Yorkers to wear masks while inside of any indoor location, besides their home, like pharmacies, grocery stores and offices.
De Blasio announced that 10 more walk-in coronavirus testing sites are coming online in the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn. Eight out of the 10 sites are already open and ready to provide free tests and two more will be ready to administer tests soon, de Blasio told reporters.
Out of the 10 new coronavirus testing sites, seven are in the Bronx at the Ramon Velez Health Center, Claremont Health Center, Clay Avenue Health Center, the Casa Maria Health Center, the Stevenson Family Health Center, and the Union Community Health Center Sites at East 188th Street and Grand Concourse. New Yorkers can now get tested at the Thomas and Marie White Health Center in Queens and at Hope Gardens at 120 Menahan St. in Brooklyn. The mayor’s office has not clarified which two testing sites are not ready to administer tests.
The mayor’s office reported that only July 11, 56 New Yorkers were admitted to a public hospital with possible COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, and 279 people were in an intensive care unit at a public hospital due to coronavirus-related complications. Only 2 percent of New Yorkers tested positive that same day, the city reported.
This story originally appeared on amny.com.
