Health & Fitness
Upper Manhattan ZIP Code Excluded From Yellow Zone: Here's Why
The 10040 ZIP code has one of the highest coronavirus rates in Manhattan. Yet, it's not included in the new yellow zone.
UPPER MANHATTAN, NY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday a yellow zone designation for a large portion of Upper Manhattan, but not all of Washington Heights and Inwood have to adhere to the new rules.
The yellow zone stretches from West 137th to 187th Streets.
The area includes most of Washington Heights, except the 10040 ZIP code that contains a small part of the neighborhood and a good portion of Inwood.
Find out what's happening in Washington Heights-Inwoodfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
At first glance, the exclusion of the ZIP code from the governor's yellow zone is peculiar.
According to the city's most recent data, the 10040 ZIP code has a 3.76 positivity rate from Nov. 14-20. The figure is the second highest out of the four Inwood and Washington Heights ZIP codes, and it is also the area that has consistently had the highest rate during November.
Find out what's happening in Washington Heights-Inwoodfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
On Nov. 14, the 10040 ZIP code registered a 5.23 percent positivity rate for the past seven days, making it the second highest in the city at the time. It was also Manhattan's top COVID-19 rate since Nov. 11, until the adjacent 10033 ZIP code passed it at the end of last week.
However, a spokesperson from the governor's office shed some light on the area's omission from the yellow zone.
"The micro-clusters are not based on ZIP codes — they are based on the actual prevalence of cases. The state's data folks and epidemiologists look at the actual locations where cases are coming from, and drew the zones around them," a spokesperson from Cuomo's office told Patch.
The spokesperson added that the micro-clusters are based on a geographic area reaching certain thresholds: the seven-day positivity rate remaining over 2.5 percent for 10 days, the number of cases per 100,000 people, and the number of hospitalizations in the area.
Cuomo's office did not specify to Patch which criteria the 10040 ZIP code area did not meet to avoid the yellow zone designation.
Yellow zones, which do not affect schools or force businesses to close, are the least restrictive of the state's neighborhood-level micro-cluster strategy. Under the strictest zone, red, all nonessential gatherings are banned, schools and nonessential businesses must close and dining must switch to takeout and delivery only.
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