NYC schools will stay open tomorrow as 7-day Covid-19 test positivity rate remains under 3%
New York City schools will remain open Tuesday, as the city’s seven-day test positivity rate remains under 3%, Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a televised interview with MSNBC.
The seven-day average test positivity rate as of Monday morning is 2.77%, he said.
If the test positivity rate reached or exceeded 3%, city schools could be closed and students would move to all-remote learning, the city previously announced.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has publicly suggested that schools across New York City should be allowed to “test out” of closing as Covid-19 rates continue to rise across the city.
“Because if the school is not spreading the virus, or if the school has a much lower positivity rate than the surrounding area, then the school is not a part of the problem, and you could argue keeping the children in the school is part of the solution rather than the children spending time on the street in the neighborhood where the infection rate is higher,” he said.
Schools should also be able to “test out of a red zone” areas around the state, where infection levels are 4% or higher, Cuomo said.
Remember: The positivity rate is the percentage of people who test positive for the virus of those overall who have been tested. So, as more and more people are being tested, the focus is shifting to the positivity rate — how many of those tested are actually infected.
