Study: Queens, Brooklyn likely origin points of most COVID cases in NYC
NEW YORK - A new study on how COVID-19 spread through New York City during the spring of 2020 has been released, and it shows that cases in Queens, and to a lesser extent in Brooklyn, were the likely origin points of most COVID infections in other parts of the city and in Nassau County.
Researchers from NYU-Langone Health said that they believed that commuting played a key role in the virus' spread, since about a third of workers who live in Queens and Brooklyn commute to Manhattan each day.
Both of the city's airports being located in Queens may have also been a factor, according to researchers.
"Our findings appear to confirm Queens’ role as the early epicenter of coronavirus transmission throughout the rest of the New York metropolitan area," said study co-senior author Ralf Duerr, MD, PhD. "Now that we understand how viral outbreaks can spread between neighborhoods, we can better plan for future contagions and prioritize testing in the most vulnerable areas."
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Previous studies had revealed that coronavirus first took root in New York in February 2020.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in the death of over 33,000 people in New York City, more than 52,000 people in New York and over 589,000 people nationwide. Globally the coronavirus pandemic is responsible for the death of over 3.4 million people.