New York Coronavirus Cases Surge Past China’s Hubei Province
New York reported a 9,300 increase in coronavirus cases on Tuesday to 76,000, surging past the former epicenter.
(Bloomberg) -- New York state reported a 9,300 increase in coronavirus cases on Tuesday to 76,000, surging past China’s Hubei province, the former epicenter.
New York has the lion’s share of infections in the U.S., which now has the most cases in the pandemic after eclipsing China last week. China’s epidemic, which has now been contained to a few new domestic cases after a two-month battle, was largely confined to Hubei province, which had 67,801 cases as of March 30.
With a population only a third of Hubei’s -- 20 million people reside in New York state while 60 million live in Hubei -- New York has emerged as the new epicenter of the outbreak, which has now infected over 788,000 people worldwide and killed more than 37,800 people.
The death toll in New York exceeds 1,500, while it’s more than 3,100 in Hubei.
Just as in Hubei, where the crisis peaked in February as President Donald Trump was still downplaying the risks to the U.S., New York’s hospitals are overwhelmed by patients and facing an urgent shortage of medical supplies and equipment, while its health-care workers are getting infected.
A key difference between the two hot spots is that Hubei was sealed off from the rest of China in a late-January mass quarantine that lasted for more than two months. Trump has ruled out a similar lockdown of New York, although residents are under a state stay-at-home order. While the Hubei quarantine caused deep suffering as thousands were unable to receive adequate medical care, the so-called cordon sanitaire worked to shield the rest of China from the virus.
The fatality rate in Hubei stood at 4.7% as of March 30, roughly five times the rest of China. New York state’s fatality rate is currently around 2%.
Questions remain over whether official infection numbers in both New York and Hubei reflect the true picture. China’s data has been repeatedly adjusted and it has only just disclosed the number of people infected with no symptoms. Those undetected carriers are likely why the pathogen has been able to spread so widely in a short amount of time.
In New York, a shortage of test kits means that health-care workers are only testing the sickest patients. That means that there are likely scores of undetected cases of people infected with mild or no symptoms.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.