More than one in five New Yorkers (21.2%) has already been infected with the coronavirus, according to the preliminary results of a study carried out on a sample of 3,000 people, said on Thursday April 23 the Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo.

This recent study is "the most important" to date carried out in this state of some 20 million inhabitants, the hardest hit by the virus in the country, in order to detect the presence of antibodies revealing a coronavirus infection. .

The people were chosen "at random", leaving stores that remained open, and are therefore people who, without being workers deemed "essential", go outside despite the pandemic, said the governor.

Progressive deconfinement

On average, some 13.6% of people tested in the state had antibodies to infection, with big differences by region. In addition to a 21.2% infection rate in New York City, the region with the highest rate was Long Island (16.7%). 

It is in this region of large beaches that many wealthy New Yorkers took refuge for the time of confinement, but it is also in some cities of Long Island that we find large Hispanic communities, with many workers employed in supermarkets or delivery services that remained open during containment.

Most of the other, more rural, regions had a very low infection rate of only 3.6%.

New York State has already recorded more than 15,000 deaths and 263,000 positive cases for the coronavirus. The study should help to determine which regions could begin progressive deconfinement. 

With AFP

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