The Gothamist/WNYC newsroom is using statistics to shape our daily coverage of the COVID-19 epidemic. This article explores COVID statistics in New York City, then looks at New York State, and finally compares New York to other regions and looks at a projection of the future.
Please send any questions or comments to data@gothamist.com.
Update 11/21/20: we've reorganized this page, adding new charts and moving old ones. Returning visitors will note a change to the top of the page- the previous criteria chart has been replaced by the key statistics chart below; we felt the old criteria chart was no longer relevant, as both the mayor and governor had stopped using the criteria to make shutdown or reopening decisions.
We've also separated all of our NYC charts, which come from data provided by the NYC Department of Health, from our New York State charts, which come from the NYS Department of Health (partially via the COVID Tracking Project.) You will find the New York State data in a new section toward the bottom of the page. We hope you enjoy the new statistics and find them clearer and easier to understand during what has clearly become a second wave of COVID activity in New York.
A note on dates: New York City's most-current data is released on a 3-day lag. This is because the Department of Health assigns every case, hospitalization, and death to the date it occurred, and reports take time to come in, be collated, and assigned. They also revise the data for older dates as new data comes in, so numbers for each day may change over time.
Recent Trends
This set of charts reviews major COVID statistics in New York City over the last 90 days. After months of low numbers of infections, the city's positivity rate began to increase in September, driven by clusters in Brooklyn and Queens. After a lull in October, positivity really began to rise in earnest at the beginning of November, due mainly to wider community spread. Throughout the period, the number of tests conducted in the city continued to rise, which also contributed to better detection of new cases. Hospitalizations and deaths also increased during this time, but to nowhere near the record numbers the city saw in April.
This chart helps explain the progress of the epidemic geographically during the last 90 days. Though all boroughs rose during this time, you can see the first peak was concentrated mainly in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, while the second peak has affected every borough, and was particularly concentrated in Staten Island.
This map shows the current positivity rates for each NYC neighborhood over the last week, to give a better sense of where COVID is currently concentrated geographically in the city. For total cases over the entire course of the epidemic, see the map below in the Positive Cases section of this article.
Positive Cases and Testing
Testing began in earnest in early March, but for weeks was limited in availability to the most symptomatic cases. This led to very high positivity rates in April, which gradually declined as the epidemic was brought under control by social distancing measures, and more people were able to get tests. Testing continued to grow every month since, which allowed the city to spot the beginning of the second wave in September, when it was still confined to a few neighborhoods.
Queens and Brooklyn have larger populations than the other boroughs, so they tend to have more cases, but when normalized for population, Staten Island and the Bronx have often seen more positives each week. This is particularly true during the second wave, with Staten Island outstripping the other boroughs.
Starting on 4/1, the New York Department of Health started to release positive cases by Zip Code information. You can see totals for the entire epidemic, as well as possible demographic associations, at our larger version of the map.
We've charted the positive case zip code data in scatterplot. On average, the lower income, older, and more diverse a neighborhood is, the more positive cases it will have. You can examine individual neighborhoods and various demographic factors on our larger chart.
Source: for Zip Code level data we use the numbers from the NYC DOH.
Hospitalizations
Over time, serious cases of COVID will put patients in the hospital, and once they're unable to breath on their own, into the Intensive Care Unit. After a desperate struggle to build emergency hospital beds in April, it turned out that the city's existing beds were mostly adequate, and in the months since, spare capacity has hovered around 20%.
During the first wave of the epidemic, the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn had more new hospitalizations per capita, but because Brooklyn and Queens are larger, they had more total new hospitalizations.
Deaths
COVID has a fatality rate between 0.5% and 1%, and New York City has suffered more deaths than any other city in the country. On April 14th, the NYC Department of Health began reporting "probable deaths"- people who had COVID listed as a cause of death on their death certificates, in addition to deaths of people with confirmed COVID tests. This raised the number of COVID deaths in the city by about 40%. This still may not include all COVID deaths, as more seemingly unrelated deaths may eventually be classified as caused by COVID. From February 1 through October 2, the CDC estimates there have been about 26,000 excess deaths in the city, compared to historical averages.
During the first wave, the Bronx had a higher per-capita death rate than the rest of the boroughs, but because Brooklyn and Queens have more population, they had the greatest death totals. During the second wave, deaths have so far been quite low compared to what happened in April, but Staten Island has been slightly above the other boroughs on a per-capita basis.
On May 18th, the city released data on deaths by zipcode. Neighborhoods with the most cases tended to have the highest numbers of deaths, but the maps of cases and deaths do not coincide exactly.
We've created a set of scatterplots exploring the correlations between deaths and positive cases, as well as other demographic factors, across the NYC zip codes. You can read more about our findings in a post on Gothamist.
Source: for zipcode level death totals we use the numbers from the NYC DOH.
Demographics
Each day the New York City Department of Health releases demographic data on COVID-19 deaths. The majority of those who die of COVID are aged 65+ and/or those with pre-existing health conditions, which the DOH defines as: "Diabetes, Lung Disease, Cancer, Immunodeficiency, Heart Disease, Hypertension, Asthma, Kidney Disease, and GI/Liver Disease." Note: these demographics include "confirmed" COVID cases only, and exclude "probable" deaths.
Source: for city demographic information we use the numbers from the NYC DOH.
Older people have been diagnosed, hospitalized, and died at much higher rates than other age groups.
Source: for city demographic information we use the numbers from the NYC DOH.
Men have been diagnosed, hospitalized, and died at rates higher than those for women.
Source: for city demographic information we use the numbers from the NYC DOH.
African-American and Latino New Yorkers have been diagnosed, hospitalized, and died at rates much higher than those for Whites and Asians.
Source: for city demographic information we use the numbers from the NYC DOH.
Poorer New Yorkers have been diagnosed, hospitalized, and died at rates much higher than those for wealthier groups.
Source: for city demographic information we use the numbers from the NYC DOH.
Antibodies
After a person has survived an encounter with coronavirus, their body produces antibodies, which are detectable on a test for a period of weeks or months. This map shows the total results of all antibody tests conducted by ZIP code, with neighborhoods that experienced the highest numbers of positive cases generally having the highest antibody rates. We do not know if antibodies confer immunity to the virus, or if so, how long that immunity lasts. The human immune system is complex, and may build other defenses to coronavirus once exposed, such as T-cell response, which is not measured in an antibody test.
Comparing New York City to Other Hard Hit Areas
New York was the world epicenter of the COVID outbreak in April, outpacing even the most affected cities in Italy and Spain- in the months since the epidemic has waned in the Northeast and intensified in the South and West.
Sources: Ministry of Health Statistics Brazil, NYS, DOH of LA, Maricopa County, Harris County, and Florida.
COVID in New York State
About 42% of New York State residents live in New York City, so COVID stats for the entire state will tend to mirror the city's stats. This is true for positivity, which shows the same large increase in April when testing was limited, and for total tests, which have risen steadily since then. However, when looking at positive tests, you see that during the second wave, the state suffered a more pronounced rise than the city, because of large second-wave outbreaks in upstate counties. Similarly, the increase in hospitalizations and deaths in New York State is more pronounced than in New York City, because of these upstate outbreaks.
Note on dates: in contrast to New York City, New York State releases its data with no lag, by assigning every test, hospitalization, and death to the day the report came in, which means that because of reporting delays, for the state data, each day in the data blends cases, hospitalizations, and deaths that actually occurred over a period of recent days.
Sources: for this New York State section, we are getting our data from the New York State Department of Health, partially via the COVID Tracking Project.
This chart allows you to look at positivity rates, new cases, and total tests for each county in New York State. Note that during the first wave, counties in and around New York City showed pronounced upticks, but during the second wave, we're seeing more counties upstate with lines moving in the wrong direction.
This map shows the current situation in each of the New York State counties. When comparing counties it's best to select "per capita" population, because visualizing by totals skews the map to high-population counties downstate.
What Will Happen Next?
There are many models that predict the future of the outbreak, but Governor Cuomo has repeatedly praised the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation's COVID-19 model. In their 11/19 update, the model predicted rising deaths through mid-February, with total deaths of 46,874 by March in New York State.
You can find several other models at the CDC's website.