When the Coronavirus outbreak started in the US, there were two hotspots. Washington on the West Coast and New York on the East Coast. Some people have speculated that Washingon actually had the Coronavirus months before the rest of the country and it had spread in the wild there. Whatever the case may be, that was eventually controlled and today Washington has moved from one of the worst spots in America to somewhere around the middle of the pack.
On the other hand, NYC was a nightmare right out of the gate. The population density, the subway, and the fact that the city was an international travel and business hub meant that if the Coronavirus took off anywhere, it would be there. Rather bizarrely, praise has been heaped on New York Governor Mario Cuomo despite the fact that his state had the worst outbreak in America and he undeniably made it much worse by pressuring nursing homes to take in patients sick with Corona. Additionally, Cuomo just got around to disinfecting the subways and regularly testing nurses in nursing homes, which is mind-blowingly incompetent, but this isn’t really about Cuomo’s lack of competence. It’s about how NYC has been the chink in America’s armor in dealing with the Coronavirus.
When the Coronavirus was running wild in China, we cut off flights to that country. When Europe started getting more infected, we cut off flights to Europe. Then, when New York became the central hub for the virus on planet earth we did nothing at all and New Yorkers spread the virus to surrounding states.
For a few weeks, between 50-60% of all the cases in the United States were in New York. Then, next-door New Jersey started getting heavily infected as people traveled back and forth to NYC. Even yesterday, New York and New Jersey were #1 and #3 in America in new cases.