There’s a lengthy feature at the Wall Street Journal, analyzing the reasons why the New York City metro area has by far the highest prevalence and mortality due to COVID-19 of anywhere else in the world:
The virus has hit New York harder than any other state, cutting through its densely populated urban neighborhoods and devastating the economy. New York state’s death toll of 30,575 accounted for 7% of the world’s deaths and 27% of American deaths as of June 11, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
The Wall Street Journal talked to nearly 90 front-line doctors, nurses, health-care workers, hospital administrators and government officials, and reviewed emails, legal documents and memos, to analyze what went wrong. Among the missteps they identify:
• Improper patient transfers. Some patients were too sick to have been transferred between hospitals. Squabbling between the Cuomo and de Blasio administrations contributed to an uncoordinated effort.• Insufficient isolation protocols. Hospitals often mixed infected patients with the uninfected early on, and the virus spread to non-Covid-19 units.
• Inadequate staff planning. Hospitals added hundreds of intensive-care beds but not always enough trained staff, leading to improper treatments and overlooked patients dying alone.
• Mixed messages. State, city government and hospital officials kept shifting guidelines about when exposed and ill front-line workers should return to work.
• Overreliance on government sources for key equipment. Hospitals turned to the state and federal government for hundreds of ventilators, but many were faulty or inadequate.
• Procurement-planning gaps. While leaders focused attention on procuring ventilators, hospitals didn’t always provide for adequate supplies of critical resources including oxygen, vital-signs monitors and dialysis machines.
• Incomplete staff-protection policies. Many hospitals provided staff with insufficient protective equipment and testing.
The article is well worth reading in full. I don’t know whether the article is gated but you may be able to find an ungated copy. I suspect the article will be much discussed.
The numbers are really quite clear. An area with 5% of the U. S. population is responsible for nearly 50% of the cases and deaths. Less New York the outbreak in the U. S. more closely resembles that of Germany than Italy’s or Spain’s. Since New York looms so large in opinion formation and mass communications, New York’s experience has colored the entire U. S. view of the disease.
IMO the entire problem can be summed up in one word: mismatch. New Yorkers demand a much larger response from government at all levels than they are willing to pay for and political leaders of a completely different stamp than they are willing to elect.
Is New York a microcosm of the entire country or unique, sui generis? I incline towards the latter view and think the numbers speak for themselves but YMMV.
“Since New York looms so large in opinion formation and mass communications, New York’s experience has colored the entire U. S. view of the disease.”
So for one more time, at the expense of this long deceased horse I’ve been beating. That comment is absolutely true if you only pay attention to national media and Washington or big city politicians. We get local media out of Savannah or Charleston. People have no idea what the big deal is. They just know its been a pain.
We visited an infrastructure related business in FL yesterday. Going gangbusters. The issue isn’t demand. Its getting people.
The whole NY-WashDC divide between influencers and Main Street makes you wonder what other disconnects there are.
How do you reach 5% in the NYC area producing 50% of deaths? I cant make the math work. Looks more like 15%-20% accounting for 50%. Post call and brain fried a bit so maybe i am missing something. NYC alone accounts for about 15% of deaths.
Steve
The New York metro area has 20 million people. That’s 6% of the U. S. population in three states. It includes counties of New York State (and NYC boroughs), New Jersey, and Connecticut. Those counties account for nearly half of all cases and deaths.
NYC total deaths 17,000, CT 4000 and NJ total for state is 12,000. That is 33,000. Add in rest of NY state and that total goes 41,000, but then you have much bigger populations. You end up with about 35% of the country’s deaths from 10% of the population. (Total deaths at 116K). I think you are using old numbers. NY area deaths slowed and other areas increased. If you confine it to what is generally considered to be the metropolitan area you get that 6% of the population but total deaths drop a bit more and you end up at about 32% of US deaths. The rest of the country has been catching up on the deaths.
Steve