Today’s New York Times reported that if the rate of growth in coronavirus cases in the New York metro area continues, it will suffer a more severe outbreak than those experienced in Wuhan, China or the Lombardy region of Italy. To date, China has experienced 3,295 deaths and Italy 9,134.
Currently, the number of Coronavirus Cases Worldwide is 621,103 and the USA is 105,034. By Monday evening, the number could approach 1 million worldwide and 250,00 in USA.
To date, New York has had less success in flattening the curve than either Wuhan or the Lombardy region.
Even worse, some metropolitan areas in the U.S. could be on a similar path to NYC. At the moment New Orleans, Seattle, Miami and Detroit could experience major outbreaks. There rate of increases (doubling of infected population) ranges from one in five days (San Francisco and Seattle) to one in three days (New York, Detroit, and Miami).
Because America has limited availability of testing, we do not know how many people are sick or may be contagious.
Because patients who die of Covid-19 tend to be sick for weeks first, counting deaths may understate the current size of the outbreak. The outbreak could grow quickly.
Originally published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune
