Which US Cities Will Have the Largest Coronavirus Outbreaks in April

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Which are the US cities that will have the most serious problems with coronavirus COVID-19 after New York? Newark, New Jersey is included with the New York Metro area.

Detroit has 1000 cases with metro population 4.3M and 50% of tests are positive
New Orleans has 1200 cases with metro population of 1.2M and 15% of tests are positive
Chicago has 1200 cases with metro population of 9.5M and 15% of tests are positive
Boston has 1300 cases with metro population of 4.6M and 13% of tests are positive
Miami has 650 cases with metro population of 6.2M and 11% of tests are positive
Philadelphia has 650 cases with metro population of 6.1M and 10% of tests are positive

Testing data is from Covidtracking.com

SOURCES- CNBC, Covid tracking, Worldometers.info, Analysis by Brian Wang
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

30 thoughts on “Which US Cities Will Have the Largest Coronavirus Outbreaks in April”

  1. The total number of cases in the US 137,200 with 2,400 deaths. That works out to a death rate of 1.7% death rate. Keep in mind that not all cases results in hospitalizations many get diagnosed and stay quarantined at home until they recover. They are not required to call in and report they are recovered. Most of the recovered listed are those that were hospitalized, recovered, and then discharged and went home. The recovered number is only those discharged from hospitals

  2. i definitely caught the virus during mardi gras this year… thankfully i had mild symptoms and feel 100 percent better now

  3. By the word “also” and what follows, I am just saying they are very vulnerable making the party all the more unwise.

  4. I live in the middle of connecticut. Doc believed i probably have covid. Lousy week but im recovering now. To get tested i would have needed known contact with someone whos tested positive, traveled to NY in the last 14 days, be a healthcare worker or be old and in bad health. They can only test 600 a day right now and i didnt meet the strict criteria.

  5. He’s describing one solitary, discreet event that placed tens of thousands all within tight confines for many hours on end. The perfect exposure situations, and the most logical reason for a quick and localized infection spike. Bad timing for a street party.

  6. About right. Densely populated east coast cities first, with suburban sprawled cities/states later, finally followed by outliers in rural areas. All quite logical

  7. For California. It will be a function of the population density and the type of dwellings people live in. Think about an apartment complex in the LA area, many are open air entry, whereas it’s enclosed/indoor entry to pretty much everything in NYC. A massive portion of the greater LA area and California in general also lives in suburban dwellings on roughly 1/4 acre plots, suburbia. To enter and exit your dwelling you don’t have to have any close contact with other people or touch things they might have. Once in the open air, transmission decreases significantly.

    I am guessing those factors and the weather (it’s been a warm sunny winter in CA) may be a big factor in decreased transmission in CA (TX is similar to CA but even better in this regard) compared to other parts of the US that have higher density living.

    With that said, the SF Bay Area has the potential to get hit hard in spots and the homeless population will likely be the biggest issue for CA.

    Side note: In the CA style apartments I described, I am thinking the laundry area will be the high risk transmission area. Really, the same goes for all apartment blocks.

  8. Plausible. It is the third worst after New York and New Jersey. Also among the least healthiest States.

    Obesity Rates 2019:
    West Virginia (38.1 percent)
    Mississippi (37.3 percent)
    Oklahoma (36.5 percent)
    Iowa (36.4 percent)
    Alabama (36.3 percent)
    Louisiana (36.2 percent)
    Arkansas (35 percent)
    Kentucky (34.3 percent)
    Alaska (34.2 percent)
    South Carolina (34.1 percent)

    Only West Virginia and Kentucky smoke more.

    Among the worst in exercise as well: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/24/where-the-biggest-couch-potatoes-in-the-united-states-live/

  9. Could just mean there are not many flu cases. You probably have to have something with similar symptoms for them to test. Or be in contact with someone known to have it.
    But clearly they are not trying to find anyone…they are waiting for people to come to them.
    That, of course, is not ideal, because you want to isolate positive asymptomatic people, but Detroit is not rich.

  10. That many positives would indicate a much higher infection rate than in other cities seeing as low as 10% or 6%. With that area being poor, urban, and black, it could easily be the worst hit and worst served area in the country. We can’t be certain of fatality numbers either, because many more healthy young people are infected than in other areas. What troubles me is the number of reported cases, especially with self-reporting patients, which could mean more of the healthy young patients are experiencing symptoms than in other areas. Watch for New Orleans and Atlanta next. I was shocked by the Coronavirus-9/11 parallels, and I wouldn’t be shocked by Hurricane Katrina parallels at this point.

    Wait until this peaks in Flint.

  11. Spring Break and Mardi Gras returnees likely will be as applicable for gaining herd immunity, as attending Chinese New Year celebrations worked in favor of gaining herd immunity for NYC.

    No pain, no gain. Chicago to take the lead from NYC???

  12. Every new locus of disease starts off with the death rate higher than the recovery rate, falling to equal to the recovery rate, and finally ending up a small % of the recovery rate.

    It’s a simple function of the time to death vs the time to recovery. It’s a statistical artefact, not the actual result of the disease.

    There are many things to worry about, but this isn’t one of them.

  13. It’s really the elderly and very young who are most at risk

    I think you are wrong about the very young. Every report I’ve seen says the young, even babies, are fine.

    Though if you have different data that would be good to see.

  14. I am somewhat unhappy with the popular “demand-for…” of the day. Today it is testing.  

    Lemme ask, somewhat philosophically.  

    I’ve got my magic wand’s bugs worked out, and I can confer to the health authorities a list of all people in say Alameda County CA, with a perfectly accurate and up-to-date indication whether they’re infected or not.  

    SO?

    What is the next step?  
    … Isolation of them all? 
    … Where? 
    … At home? 

    How to keep them from transfecting their family members, and their family members from being unwilling vectors taking the viruses outside the compound walls?

    Or, maybe “no, that’s not what we’d do”. OK, fine … but what is? Set each person up for a every–7-day Amazon shipment of great masks and cotton gloves, and handi-wipes, and all that? Yes? Maybe that’s where the $2,000,000,000,000 is supposed to partially go!!!

    Refill the helium in your balloon, and go up to 40,000 feet. What would my 1.67 million name list be utilized for, say “Monday morning”?

    Answer that, and we’re on to why “having a tested case list” is also one of my pet peeves: is there any broad, serious societal behavior adjustment that can be done assuming that there are literally gazillions of people out there infected?

    I believe so.
    Tests useful, but not critical to stemming this ugly tide.

    ⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
    ⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅

  15. True, but … you know that PCR testing can be VERY sensitive.  All one needs to have is a sub-clinical, sub-infectious residual infection that kicks up a bit, but then is mopped up by the immune system, to show up on a PCR genetic marker test.  

    And… to be certain, with most-every virus we catch, there is conferred long term immunity for at least 20 years if you are young, and 10 years if you are in your 50s. For most bugs. Some pique the immune response for life, because we’re regularly getting reinfected with both nasty variants, and relatively benign relatives to the original bug.  

    Kingdom Animalia has been AT WAR with Kingdom Virii for a LONG time. Or realm Viridae. Whatever.

    ⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅

  16. It still depends on the amount of testing. If you two identical populations with the same levels and rates of infection and you test the entire population of one and only the sick in the other you’d have vastly different positive rates between the two. Note, only if your testing criteria and test availability are the same can you make the claim that you do.

  17. There remains some uncertainty on the immunity.

    SAY you have caught covid-19 and recovered – are you now immune for life, or could you catch it again? We just don’t know yet. In February, reports emerged of a woman in Japan who had been given the all-clear after having covid-19 but then tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus a second time. There have also been reports of a man in Japan testing positive after being given the all-clear, and anecdotal cases of second positives have emerged from China, too. This has raised fears that people may not develop immunity to the virus. This would mean that, until we have an effective vaccine, we could all experience repeated rounds of infection. But the science is still uncertain. “There is some anecdotal evidence of reinfections, but we really don’t know,” says Ira Longini at the University of Florida. It may be that the tests used were unreliable, which is a problem with tests for other respiratory viruses, says Jeffrey Shaman at Columbia University in New York.

    …The researchers then tried to reinfect two of them but failed, which suggests the animals were immune (bioRxiv, doi.org/ggn8r8). “That finding is very encouraging, as it suggests that it is possible to induce protective immunity against the virus,” says Alfredo Garzino-Demo at the University of Maryland School of Medicine…

    New Scientist – 25 March 2020

  18. If this was what a city looked like with 50% infection then we would be home free.

    Edit: it is bad because it tells you that testing numbers are nowhere near enough to track what is actually happening.

  19. Neither Detroit or where I live are doing randomized testing. Still 50% of tests given being positive is bad compared to 6%.

  20. explain this one to me… these numbers are from google… are they under reporting recovered?

    USA: recovered:3129 dead:1935
    kill_rate = 1935 / (3129+1935) = 37% of infected die!!

    World: recovered:139550 dead:29971
    kill_rate = 139550/(139550+2997) = 17% of infected die!!

    I guess recovery rate and death rate have different average periods of time… death being an absolute…. but recovered they make you stay an extra 2 weeks to be safe?

  21. i posted another PS note above, but insofar as the ”non-lethal-strain” goes, I’ve heard that scientists so far are alarmed that there doesn’t yet appear to be a ”less-lethal” version. Mutation rate is low, and the survivability appears to depend a lot on just how big-of-a-load of viruses you “catch” leading up to the infection, as well as the other factors endlessly repeated by the Media. You know… pulmonary problems, heart issues, prior pneumonias, asthma, COPD, advanced age, immune disorders, smoking weed, tobacco or goat chips. No real genetic evidence that they-who-survive also had a survivable strain, per se.

  22. PS… I didn’t state the math very well.  Lets use 3 numeric factors for each mitigation strategy.

    Rnew = Ro (p)(1 – e) + Ro (1 – p)
    Rnew = Ro ( p( 1 – e ) + (1- p) )
    Rnew = Ro ( p – pe ⊕ 1 – p ) … p’s cancel
    Rnew = Ro (1 – pe)

    If you look at it it kind of makes sense viscerally: The 2nd part of the top equation (Ro • (1-p)) means that the fraction of the population (1-p) that doesn’t do the thing, will still have Ro propagation rate, for purposes of this equation.  The first part ( p • (1 – e) ) means, that the number ‘p’ that do it, will have an fail-rate (1-e), in the contributed net result.  For that line.  

    The following equations are just an algebraic simplifications step, by step. So, if we have estimates for 4 mitigation strategies, S₁, S₂, S₃, S₄, then net effective Ro of all of them becomes

    Rtot = Ro⋅S₁⋅S₂⋅S₃⋅S₄⋅
    Rtot = Ro (1 – p₁e₁)⋅(1 – p₂e₂)⋅(1 – p₃e₃)⋅(1 – p₄e₄)

    Ta Da.
    Good math.

    Just have to estimate the proportion of the population playing along, and the actual reduction-in-propagation effectiveness of each strategy

  23. I live in Louisiana and you can blame our infection rate completely on Mardi Gras. Not just in N.O. but also smaller parades all over the state.

  25. I guess how bad that is depends if the tests are done at random (I’m almost certain they are not) or if the test are done on people that show all the symptoms of COVID-19. I think you get my point.

  26. Yah… that. Still, in the end, its all pretty simple math: take the naked propensity-to-infect-others rate (2.5) and multiply it by the the (1 – proportion) / (1 – effectiveness) … for each, and there you are. You can even “guesstimate”, and that’s pretty OK.

    Example.  4 different suppression methods, combined.

    DISTANCING, 60% of population, 75% effective
    MASKING, 75% of population, 85% effective
    QUARANTINE, 35% of population, 95% effective
    VACCINATE, 50% of population, 95% effective
    Ro … unaddressed ‘naked’ factor = 2.5

    Distancing… Ro becomes 1.375, 55% people escape
    Masking… Ro becomes 0.495, 36% escape
    Quarantine.. Ro becomes 0.333, 67% escape
    Vaccination, Ro becomes 0.111, 34% escape.

    This BEGS the question, “so why aren’t there government mandates for all-citizens to wear masks in public, in places of work, worship, etc. ???”

    Answer… because they’re doing it in stages. So people don’t revolt. Step-by-step.

    ⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
    ⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅

  27. Except… there is no ‘conferred immunity’ with hunkering-down-and-not-developing-antigens.  

    Hunkering down is like taking truckloads of sterile Petri dishes, and sending them to warehouses. Nothing is going to infect them en-masse, or even individually except for a few outliers. 12 months later, if you take the covers off all of them, they’re just as ready to grow whatever lands on them as they were the day they were put in storage.  

    This is actually the core of the discussion I have been having privately with a number of science-of-epidemics types, as well as others of good knowledge and quick synthesis wit.  

    The “problem inside the problem” is finding some way to confer large-scale ‘herd immunity’ onto upwards of 200,000,000 Americans (ignoring for the moment, the rest of the World). About 65% of living people, all in all.  

    The only real thing ‘herd immunity’ does is decrease the propensity of the infectious agent to propagate person-to-person.  IF, nominally, as is claimed for CV19, the Ro factor is about 2.5 … meaning each person in an open-unmitigated population passes her virus (and infects) 2.5 others, … having 65% of all people with immunity turns that into (2.5 × (1 – 0.65) = 0.875).  This is an exponential ‘relaxing’ or easing curve.  And this, for people milling around without masks, without 6-foot separation, without thinking much about person-to-person transmission reduction.  

    ⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
    ⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅

  28. It is elderly who are most at risk of dying. There are still consequences for the young and middle aged who get the virus.

    “best to get infected and hunker down” lol no. Best to hunker down if you can and not get infected.

  29. Unless there’s an imminent vaccine about to become available, I think that it’s best to get infected and hunker down, to get it over with. Spring & summer months should make it easier. Otherwise, you’re just delaying your inevitable infection, and the process of gaining immunity. It’s really the elderly and very young who are most at risk and in need of special precautions. For most people, it’s just been a cough and a fever.

  30. Detroit having a 50% positive test rate is really bad.

    By way of comparison my county is doing 1,000 tests a day with a positive rate of about 6%.

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