Research Shows Most Of COVID-19 Cases In New York Imported From Europe - Reports

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 09th April, 2020) The majority of COVID-19 cases in New York were imported from Europe, not from Asia, media reported, citing a research.

"The majority is clearly European," Harm van Bakel, a geneticist at Icahn school of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who is one of the researchers behind the study awaiting peer review, said as quoted by The New York Times.

According to the outlet, citing the study, coronavirus began to spread in the New York area by mid-February, a few weeks before the first case was confirmed there.

The research focused on the coronavirus genomes taken from samples provided by New York residents after mid-March.

Notably, a separate group of samples was studied by scientists from New York Grossman School of Medicine, who came to the same conclusions.

The United States is leading in the number of COVID-19 cases worldwide with over 432,000 people who have tested positive and 14,817 fatalities. Most of the victims of the disease were reported in New York - 4,571, according to John Hopkins University.