Tango-Tiger

More than a year after New York City ground to a halt during the height of its COVID-19 outbreak, bars and restaurants are open, beaches are crowded and kids are headed back to school in person come fall.

"Here in New York City, we have hit the lowest level of COVID today since the pandemic began," Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a Thursday news conference. By every metric, including a decline in new COVID เข้าเกมสล็อต cases, test positivity rates, and hospitalizations over the past several weeks, New York's outbreak is receding. Earlier this week, the city logged a day with zero deaths from the virus and on Thursday reported a positivity rate of 0.8%, the lowest level since the city started reporting the metric more than a year ago. While a day with no deaths is a single data point and data backlogs are common after weekends and holiday, the low numbers were encouraging.

"It's stunning how much progress has been made," de Blasio said. A less obvious development? Many of the city's doctors -- at the center of the one-time ground zero of the outbreak -- are smiling again, although there are formidable challenges ahead such as keeping the virus at bay and the mental health of those who were traumatized by front. -line medical work.

"I'm just ecstatic to have all of that behind us," said Dr. Craig Spencer, director of global health in emergency medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. "It's this beautiful alignment of so much hope and optimism that caps off a year of the exact opposite."

As vaccinations rise, a burden lifted for doctors
While New York City saw several waves of COVID-19 infections over the course of the pandemic, the situation never approached the crushing level of hospitalizations and deaths that took place during the initial spring spike. "We've had ebbs and flows that felt tiny in comparison to that," Spencer said. He described his work since the first spike as straightforward because of what he and his colleagues endured during the first months of the outbreak.

In mid-December, Spencer got vaccinated and "started immediately feeling safer," he said. That relief has become even more pronounced in recent weeks, as New Yorkers continued to get vaccinated. As of Thursday, 52% of New York City residents had received at least one dose of the vaccine and 44% were fully vaccinated, according to the city's health department.