NYC Records Lowest COVID Test Positivity Rate Since March, De Blasio Aims to Reopen Schools

New York mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday that the city has recorded its lowest positive testing rate for coronavirus since the pandemic began in March.

The most recent daily results for citywide coronavirus tests, August 17, revealed that 0.24 percent of new patients tested positive. As of the same date, the city recorded a 7-day average of 320 people testing positive, a rate that has held relatively steady since the beginning of the month.

“This is extraordinary,” de Blasio said of the daily positivity rate. “This should be a clarion call to all of us to double down and go farther, because the more we can do to beat back this virus, the more we can do to bring back this city.”

New York City and the surrounding environs bore the brunt of the initial coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. Close to 24,000 city residents have died of coronavirus, and over 2 percent of the city’s entire population has been infected at some point during the pandemic.