Forest Hills' Coronavirus Rate Dips Below 1 Percent: Data

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — As coronavirus numbers across the city plunge, Forest Hills has reached a less than one percent positivity rate for the virus, though not all neighborhoods are being tested at the same rates.

The Forest Hills ZIP code of 11375 dipped below a one percent seven-day coronavirus positivity rate this week, and the area only had seven reported positive COVID-19 cases between May 25 and May 31, data shows.

The low coronavirus positivity rate comes as a growing majority of people in Forest Hills get their coronavirus vaccine — more than 68 percent of adults have had at least one shot, and of those more than 61 percent are fully vaccinated, data shows.

Those rates exceed — or are on par with — the borough's overall vaccination rate, and rates in the city at large.

Citywide, 63 percent of New Yorker adults have gotten at least their first dose, and just over half, 54 percent, are fully vaccinated. Similarly, in Queens those rates were 68 and 59 percent as of Thursday, respectively.

But high vaccination rates don’t immediately mirror low coronavirus positivity rates, since neighborhoods are not getting tested for COVID at the same rates.

The city reports coronavirus positivity rates by ZIP code, based on the daily test rate of area residents per 100,000 people who live in the area.

On average, the daily test rate citywide is 388 per 100,000 people.

Forest Hills ZIP code has a daily test-rate per 100,000 residents that’s under the city’s median test-rate.

So, in order to understand how a neighborhood is doing when it comes to battling — and recovering from — the coronavirus compared to other areas of the city, it’s helpful to take into account positivity rate and vaccination rates.

Take the Rockaway Peninsula for example: The Far Rockaway ZIP code of 11691 has a seven-day coronavirus positivity rate of under one percent, whereas Breezy Point has a seven-day coronavirus positivity rate of nearly three percent.

But, the percentage of adults who are vaccinated in Breezy Point is more than double that of Far Rockaway — the adults in Breezy Point are simply getting tested at a rate that’s nearly double that of adults in Far Rockaway, per 100,000 people.

Despite the low seven-day coronavirus positivity rate, Far Rockaway, which has become a case study in the vaccine rollout disparities, continues to lag behind the rest of the city and the borough — it is the area with the lowest percentage of vaccinated adults in Queens.