N.Y.C. Virus Cases Appear to Plateau. Could an Uptick Lie Ahead?

As students head back to school, experts say that the city’s third coronavirus wave may be ebbing.

The Delta variant’s rapid spread in New York City this summer has slowed in recent weeks, convincing some epidemiologists that the city’s third coronavirus wave has begun to ebb. But others are bracing for an uptick of cases as school starts. Dr. Dave Chokshi, the city’s health commissioner, described the current moment in an interview as a plateau, and warned that the level of virus transmission — at some 1,500 cases per day — “remains at too high a level for us to be complacent about where we are.” With the school year starting, and municipal agencies and some large companies mandating a return to the office, the old weekday rhythms — families rushing out the door, morning commutes, lunch meetings — are about to return for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, even as levels of the virus remain relatively high.