Stats show tide of sickness in city housing
The city on Monday released new breakdowns of coronavirus cases by zip code and, for the first time, by NYCHA development — starkly illustrating the divide in how the pandemic has affected communities of color and whites.
The data, released by the Health Department, revealed the Marcy Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant had the most confirmed COVID-19 deaths, with 21 lives lost in the Brooklyn development.
Sixteen residents at the Grant Houses in Manhattan died of confirmed COVID-19 cases, with six additional listed as probable coronavirus deaths. There have been 127 confirmed cases at the Harlem housing development, the most citywide.
The Health Department also released updated breakdowns of per-capita COVID-19 deaths broken down by zip code.
The hardest-hit neighborhoods by that metric include western Queens,
Kingsbridge and the northNew eastern portion of the Bronx, as well as Canarsie and Flatlands in Brooklyn.
“This public health emergency has affected all of our communities,” Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot said in a written statement. “The data also show that this virus is not hitting New Yorkers equitably.”
She cautioned that older Yorkers in particular must continue to “take precautions to protect themselves.”
Other New York City Housing Authority developments that have been hard hit by coronavirus include the Bronx River Houses, which saw 15 deaths, six probable deaths and a total of 101 cases; Patterson Houses with a total of 15 deaths and 100 confirmed cases; and the Pomonok Houses in Queens with 14 deaths.
The Health Department said in a statement that, as of last week, “the degree to which residents of NYCHA have been affected by COVID-19 is proportionate to their representation of the city’s population —approximately 4.4%.”