Wafaa El-Sadr, MD, MPH, MPA spotlights the contradictions in New York’s COVID-19 response: agencies continue to loosen restrictions as the number of cases rise.

“Last July we had 200 to 300 positive cases per day. Now we have about 4,000 new cases in the city each day, and the positivity rate in tests is above 6%. And it’s not budging,” says Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, a Columbia University professor of epidemiology and the director of its global public health program. “We have been easing the rules week by week by week, while at the same time the data are telling us that we are not in a good place.”