New York is reporting “concerning” signs of a coronavirus resurgence, which would dash hopes that its high rate of immunity would spare it from a second wave. The city, which had been the epicentre of the US’s Covid-19 outbreak before it was hailed as a model of containment, was one of the few success stories in a country struggling to get the pandemic under control. However, it is now seeing the most dramatic uptick in daily cases since June. While numbers in southern and western states have been steadily rising, New York’s positive test rate had for months been holding at around one per cent. But as one of America’s longest and strictest lockdowns eases, the infection rate in New York has soared to an average of more than 3 per cent and 6 per cent in the “hotspots.” Bill de Blasio, the city’s mayor, announced on Sunday that he intended to “rewind” the reopening in nine neighborhoods that have had a testing positivity rate of more than 3 percent over the last seven days.
