When New York City Got Covid-19
A reconstruction of the disease’s spread shows that it may have already peaked before the city fully shut down in late March.
A different view.
Photographer: Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images
The Covid-19 epidemic that raged through New York City in late winter and early spring is starting to feel like ancient history. The disease has mostly moved on to other locales. Life in the city is far from normal, but tons livelier than it was in March and April.
One of the many advantages to having the coronavirus in the city’s rearview mirror (for now at least) is that it’s getting easier to see how the biggest urban explosion of the disease in the U.S. (so far at least) actually played out. Thanks to antibody surveys conducted by the state of New York and a study released in preliminary form last month by a large group of researchers at New York City’s Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, it is now possible to craft a rough estimate of how many people were infected with the disease in the city and when. Turns out it’s a lot different from the standard picture provided by confirmed-case counts!