In a tweet on August 4, Ashish Jha, MD, took a break from pointing out overlooked struggling states to give credit to the Empire State. He praised New York’s numbers, saying it’s “doing 67,000 tests a day [and] finding 670 cases a day.” That’s a 1 percent positive test rate, which matches what Covid Act Now reports. Just how well is New York handling the pandemic? “This is South Korea level,” Jha wrote, citing the Asian country’s successful control of the disease. “And it’s awesome.” Once the epicenter of the global pandemic, almost all indicators appear to show that New York is on the right path in curbing the spread of the disease. As of August 5, the state ranked in the top 5 in the U.S. for lowest daily new cases per capita, according to the HGHI’s COVID Risk Level map. It’s seeing a seven-day average of 3.5 new cases per 100,000 people. New York also posted a six percent decrease in overall new cases over the past two weeks, according to The New York Times. On August 4, New York City also marked its third straight day without a coronavirus death, CBS News reported.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb Perhaps most impressively, Jha pointed out that the state is in the rare position to do something others are struggling to do thanks to its current numbers. “Transmission levels [are] so low,” he tweeted, “NY can, with proper precautions, open schools safely.” As it currently stands, schools are set to open in New York in the coming weeks, so long as infection rates stay below 3 percent, Gothamist reports. RELATED: For more up-to-date information, sign up for our daily newsletter. But New York is not resting on its declining numbers. The state is continuing to hold off on reopening bars and indoor dining and instituting a strict quarantine for visitors from states where COVID-19 is surging. “Our progress in New York is even better than we expected, thanks to the hard work of New Yorkers,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on August 4. “We cannot go back to the hell we experienced just a few months ago—and surging infection rates across the country threaten to bring us back there—so we must all remain vigilant.” And for more on why a certain successful state is slipping, check out The Surprising Source of Hawaii’s COVID Surge, According to Officials.
