NYC coronavirus deaths outnumber 9/11 toll at ground zero
A person wearing a protective face mask for protect against COVID-19 walks in New York, Monday, April 6, 2020, during the current coronavirus outbreak.[AP/ Matt Rourke]
More people have now died from the coronavirus in New York City than perished in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.
At least 3,202 people have been killed in the city by the virus, according to a new count released by city health officials Tuesday.
The deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil killed 2,753 people in the city and 2,977 overall, when hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 11, 2001.
The coronavirus has again made New York ground zero in a national tragedy and the center of a crisis that is reshaping Americans’ lives, liberties and fears.
“9/11 transformed society. … You had a sense of vulnerability that you never had before, which I feel to this day,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during a coronavirus briefing last month. “There was a trauma to 9/11. But as a society, as a country, we have been blessed in that we have not gone through something as disruptive as this.”
The coronavirus death toll has mounted over the course of just a few weeks. The city recorded its first on March 13, less than two weeks after confirming its first infection.