The coronavirus pandemic is set to move into a new, more dangerous phase next week, with three more big cities likely to be afflicted badly, as New York has been.

New York is worse off than anywhere else in the United States, with 44,000 confirmed cases, half of the nationwide total. New York City alone has reported 23,000 cases and 365 deaths. City doctors say the hospitals there face a worse calamity than during the AIDS epidemic or the 9/11 terrorist attacks.