NEW YORK – According to a new Mount Sinai studyAbout 1.7 million people in New York City, roughly 20 percent of the city’s population, have already had COVID-19. Also, says the study, the death rate from virus infection is close to 1 percent, that is, ten times more deadly than the flu. The disease was also shown to be spreading before the first confirmed case was reported eight months ago.
Due to the lack of testing for COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic, (as well as many asymptomatic and mild cases that went undetected), the researchers say they used more than 10,000 plasma samples that were taken between February and July. two groups: some of patients admitted to urgent care and others who visited the hospital for other routine visits.
“In this study, our goal was to understand the dynamics of infection in the general population and in people seeking urgent care,” said Dr. Emilia Mia Sordillo, lead author of the study, who along with other researchers theorized that the Plasma samples better represent the general population because their hospital visits were not related to the virus.
The researchers calculated the 20% infection rate in New York City by testing for antibodies and looking for past infections, rather than the presence of the virus, at weekly intervals. Positive cases were found in samples collected in mid-February, the researchers said; that’s a few weeks before the city confirmed the case of a woman who had traveled back from abroad as the first positive case.
The positivity rate in samples from the urgent care group increased significantly, while the rate in samples from the routine visit group varied, the researchers said. They concluded that the positivity rate for both groups hovered around 20% after New York City managed to flatten the curve in late May. From May to July, the numbers stabilized, suggesting long-lasting antibody levels in the population.
Corresponding author Dr. Florian Krammer said the data suggests that the death rate from COVID-19 infection is 0.97% after the first epidemic wave in New York City. According to the World Health Organization, the mortality rate for seasonal influenza is well below 0.1%.
Krammer added that the infection rate is well below what can be considered herd immunity. Clearly, the virus continues to spread despite the finding that one in 10 New Yorkers may already be infected.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo warned Monday that “these are dangerous times,” as the number of cases begins to rise.
Just under 50,000 New Yorkers tested positive for COVID-19 in October, about double the number who contracted the virus in September, according to state statistics. During the last seven days of the month, an average of around 2,040 people per day tested positive for the virus in the state, up from around 680 people per day in the last seven days of August.
The increase mirrored what has happened in the US and other nations this fall, as people have let down their guard against the disease and returned to schools, stores, restaurants and other indoor activities. Cuomo warned residents of the “danger signs around us.”
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