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Nearly half of the nation’s new COVID-19 cases are concentrated in just five states – including New York, which recorded the highest number of new infections across the country last week, data shows.
Together, New York, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey accounted for 44% of all new infections between March 29 and April 4 with about 197,500 of about 452,000 cases seen nationwide, according to data from the ‘Johns Hopkins University.
New York, which recorded 52,922 cases last week, an average of about 7,560 per day, accounted for about 12% of the country’s total cases.
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Just behind the Empire State was Michigan, which has struggled with a surge in new infections and recorded 47,036 new positives over the past week, an average of around 6,719 per day, or close to the double what it was two weeks ago, according to the data.
Together, New York and Michigan accounted for 22% of all new cases across the country last week.
Florida recorded 37,927 cases, while Pennsylvania and New Jersey recorded 29,847 and 29,753 new infections, respectively.
The concentration of new cases has prompted some experts and elected officials to call on the Biden administration to ship additional vaccines to the hotspots – although the White House has not indicated that it plans to change its policy.
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While sending extra doses to hotspots seems logical, it could mean that states that do a better job of controlling the virus will see fewer doses, noted Dr Elvin H. Geng, professor of infectious diseases at the University of Washington.
“You wouldn’t want to keep these people waiting because they were getting better,” Geng said.
“On the other hand, it only makes sense to send vaccines where cases are increasing.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio has repeatedly called for more vaccines from the federal government, saying on Tuesday “We still need the supply, the supply, the supply.”
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said she asked the White House last week if she was considering sending additional vaccines to states like hers and was told all options were on the table. table.
She said she did not plan to tighten restrictions to deal with the outbreak and instead blamed it on pandemic fatigue and more contagious variants of the virus.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said he was constantly in talks with the White House about requesting jabs, but stopped before saying he was asking for more doses to manage the rate of d high infection. He noted that vaccine shipments to Garden State increased 12% last week – but he always wondered if that was enough.
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“We’re constantly watching, OK we know we’re going up,” Murphy said.
“But are we going to increase at the rate that we should be, especially given the number of cases we have?”
This article originally appeared on NYPost.com.
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