21.2% of New York City residents have suffered from COVID-19, according to preliminary data from a study announced today by Governor Andrew Cuomo, which indicates that 13.9% of the population of the entire state , which is equivalent to 2.7 million people, has suffered it and that the Hispanic American and black communities have been the most affected.
Cuomo explained that taking into account this study and that the death toll in the state – according to official data – rises to around 15,500, the death rate of the virus would be around 0.5%. Although the governor himself acknowledged that the statistics do not register the people who died in their homes and whose death could have been caused by the new coronavirus, but it has not been confirmed.
According to Johns Hopkins University, which does take such cases into account, the total death toll in New York State rises to 19,453.
The data, which was made from 3,000 analyzes carried out over two days in grocery stores and other businesses in 40 towns in 19 counties in the state, suggest that 15.9% of the men analyzed had antibodies and therefore had contracted the disease at some point, compared to 12% of women.
By regions, in addition to New York City, which recorded the highest number of infected, tests on Long Island showed that 16.7% of its population has been infected.
Also, according to the study, 11.7% of people tested in Westchester and Rockland counties, north of New York City, tested positive. These regions saw one of the first major outbreaks of the pandemic in the state.
In the rest of New York, only 3.6% of the population would have been infected.
Cuomo’s announcement comes shortly after New York Mayor Bill de Blasio pointed out at his daily press conference that “the coronavirus is alive, well and living in the city” and detailed that there have been 2,519 new cases of COVID-19 and 320 deaths in the last 24 hours as well as a decrease in the number of hospitalizations.
De Blasio indicated that it is possible that “half of New Yorkers” contract the coronavirus at some point while the head of the Health area of New York City, Oxiris Barbot, expressed that it would not “surprise” him if at this point of the pandemic there have been more than one million New Yorkers exposed to the virus.
By communities, the study confirms that Latin Americans with 22.5% are the most affected, followed by African Americans 22.1% and Asians 11.7%. Whites, with 9.1%, is, so far, the segment of the population that has suffered the least from the disease.
“There are several factors why there is a higher percentage of positives in the African American and Latino communities: there were health disparities, there was comorbidity, underlying diseases, diabetes, etc. and I also think that the highest percentage of essential workers are African American and Latino.” Cuomo said, insisting that further testing will continue to be done in these communities and that they could work with churches to turn them into testing centers.
In this sense, Cuomo stressed that “while everyone or many other people have the opportunity to lock themselves in their home no matter how terrible it is, essential workers have to get up every morning and go out and drive the bus and drive the subway and deliver the food and do all those essential services that allow people to stay at home. “
In his press conference, the governor indicated that the number of deaths in the last hours had risen to 438, the lowest in the last seven days and that the number of hospitalizations was 1,359, the lowest in the last month .
Cuomo highlighted the progressive reduction in deaths, hospitalizations and patient admissions to intensive care units but acknowledged that “the numbers are not going down as fast as we would like.”
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