From the Wall Street Journal:
But even allowing for some margin of error, the numbers amount to one death in New York City for every 500 people. Not—remember—one death for every 500 people with Covid-19 but one death for every 500 residents of the city. Think about that. That might be a handful of parents or grandparents at your average high school, or one or two co-workers on your office floor.
London, with a similar population, has recorded about a third of New York’s death tally.
Not only is this multiples higher than other major population centers in the U.S., it is way more than any comparable city in the world. London, with a similar population, has recorded a little over 4,000 deaths, about a third of New York’s tally.
If New York City didn’t exist, the likely number of total deaths in the U.S. from this virus would be about one for every 7,000 Americans. This would make it about as lethal as the average annual influenza, as critics of the policy response to the crisis have said. In American terms, it can be said that it is New York alone that makes this pandemic…a pandemic.