‘Critical point’: Is New York returning to post-pandemic normal too soon?

The loosening of COVID-19 restrictions in New York and other states risks reversing gains in controlling the spread of the coronavirus, health experts say.

“It’s a little baffling and alarming to see this,” said Wafaa El-Sadr, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in Manhattan.

With the number of COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations still relatively high, and the full effect of more contagious variants still unknown, it’s premature to ease restrictions so dramatically, said Dr. William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and a professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.

“We are at a critical point,” said Schaffner, who believes there likely will be an increase in hospitalizations and deaths because of the rollbacks. “We’re vaccinating fast and furiously. We need to hang on as a society a bit longer.”

New York’s Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has in the past few weeks announced a series of relaxations in regulations, citing the decline in the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations from a post-holiday peak — although numbers remain far higher than over the summer.

Maximum capacity for indoor dining will rise Friday to 75% outside New York City and 50% within the city. Weddings of up to 150 people will be allowed starting Monday, with restrictions such as 50% capacity, masks when not seated and negative coronavirus test results. Arts and entertainment venues will open at 33% capacity beginning April 2, with up to 150 people indoors and 500 people outdoors, with restrictions. Domestic travelers will as of April 1 no longer be required to quarantine upon arrival in New York.

Other states have gone much further, including Texas, which recently rescinded a mask mandate and lifted capacity restrictions. Connecticut is eliminating restaurant capacity limits beginning Friday, and Massachusetts did so on March 1.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said March 1 she was “really worried about more states rolling back the exact public health measures we have recommended to protect people from COVID-19. … At this level of cases, with variants spreading, we stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained.”

Schaffner said some of New York’s new rules significantly increase risk. “Groups of 150 to 500 are simply too large at this point,” Schaffner said, and he predicted many people will ignore mask and social-distancing requirements at events. Testing misses the newly infected and can yield false negatives, he said.

Jack Sterne, a Cuomo spokesman, said in an email that New York’s moves can’t be compared with those in states like Texas, “which recklessly reopened ‘100%’, while repealing mask mandates. New York’s reopening remains a thoughtful and methodical process based on data, science and safety.”

Opposition to lifting restrictions isn’t universal. Dr. John Zerwas, a coronavirus adviser to Gov. Greg Abbott, executive vice chancellor for health affairs at the University of Texas System, told The Dallas Morning News that he supported Abbott’s lifting of all restrictions because the state’s COVID-19 numbers were falling.

In New York, the rate of positive coronavirus tests has remained level since late February, hovering at a seven-day average of about 3.1% to 3.2%, after dropping from 7.9% on Jan. 4.

The fall in hospitalizations since early January has slowed, with the number of New Yorkers hospitalized with COVID-19 remaining above 4,600, after a post-holiday peak of 9,273 on Jan. 19. Nearly 1,050 New Yorkers have…