Roughly 14% Of New Yorkers Have Had Coronavirus, Gov Cuomo Says

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a release to reporters Thursday that more than 13% of New Yorkers likely had coronavirus over the past several weeks.

New York discovered the data after randomly testing 3,000 people at grocery stores and other local establishments across 19 counties, Cuomo said. Citizens could have been infected as long as a month and a half ago, according to Cuomo, who called the study a “significant data set.”

“What does that mean? It means these were people who were infected and who developed the antibodies to fight the infection,” Cuomo said. “They were infected three weeks ago, four weeks ago, five weeks ago, six weeks ago, but they had the virus, they developed the antibodies and they are now recovered.”

Dr. Aenor Sawyer, a physician at UCSF and resident of Bolinas, wears a face mask as she takes part in the testing of all village residents for the novel coronavirus and its antibodies on Monday, one of the first such efforts since the pandemic hit the United States three months ago to combat the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis, in Bolinas, California, U.S. April 20, 2020. REUTERS/Kate Munsch

REUTERS/Kate Munsch

New York health officials, meanwhile, said many more citizens were likely exposed.

“[C]lose to a million New Yorkers” had been exposed to coronavirus, or COVID-19, Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said during a press briefing Thursday with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio by her side.

There have been at least 138,000 confirmed cases in a city of 8.3 million, Barbot said. (RELATED: First Released Antibody Study Shows Coronavirus Infection Rate Could Be 50 To 80 Times More Widespread Than Previously Believed)

COVID-19’s spread could be far wider than previously thought, according to another antibody test performed April 17 by Stanford University researchers. The teams tested 3,300 Santa Clara County, California, volunteers and found that 2.5% to 4.2% of those tested were positive for antibodies, meaning the infection rate is likely much higher than the official account.

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