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?:abstract
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This chapter examines the geography of COVID markers and premature mortality in the four central boroughs of New York City (NYC): Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens Manhattan and the Bronx being similar in population are compared and Brooklyn is to Queens The poverty belt of Brooklyn hosted high rates of COVID deaths and premature mortality rates, whereas only the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens showed high rates of both In Queens, few Zip Code areas suffered from moderate or high rates of premature mortality, but a cluster of areas around LaGuardia Airport had high rates of COVID deaths The populations of these five areas included high proportions of the foreign-born (54–66%) Manhattan below 96th Street enjoyed wide swaths of areas with low COVID mortality rates and low premature mortality rates The areas above 96th Street, however, showed moderate to high rates of COVID death rates Harlem, in particular, suffered from both high COVID death rates and high premature mortality rates Out of 24 areas in the Bronx, only two enjoyed low COVID death rates High COVID death rates formed a belt across northern Bronx, but the patchiness of COVID death rates in the southern Bronx may be an artifact of inadequate testing The south central Bronx featured a transect of areas with high premature mortality rates, in contrast with rates of COVID rates Only one area in the Bronx had a low rate of premature mortality From the maps of COVID and premature mortality rates, the entire Bronx gives clear signals of borough-wide health crisis The Bronx is the only borough where COVID death rates have no significant association with any of the socioeconomic (SE) factors in the database It is the only borough where premature death rates have no association with cancer, flu/pneumonia, or diabetes mortality rates and the association with heart disease mortality is negative Yet, the Bronx SE factors have significant associations with each other It is the public health system that has shattered Manhattan, in contrast, has COVID markers and premature mortality rates with strong associations with SE factors, with each other and with other mortality rates Most of the entire Bronx was targeted with destructive public policies for many decades, as were selected areas of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens The maps of COVID and premature mortality reflect the geography of governmental oppression and corruption against segregated populations Even the map of Queens COVID mortality rates shows negligence on the part of the health authorities in penetrating and winning the trust of the many immigrant communities by establishing a long-term relationship The maps show results of a range of governmental actions/inactions from active oppression to oblivious neglect to negligent failure The tight connections in Manhattan resemble the structure of an ecosystem without diversity and with great brittleness Future impacts could lead to a regime change that brings Manhattan into closer configuration to the Bronx © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
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