Over half of all U.S. coronavirus deaths have occurred in just 5 states

Well over half of all documented coronavirus deaths in the United States have occurred in just five states, a statistic which mirrors the heavily concentrated and localized nature of COVID-19 outbreaks in several other countries. 

Of the nearly 80,000 deaths from the virus in this country as of Saturday afternoon, nearly 48,700, or about 60 percent, had occurred in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan and Pennsylvania. 

New York remains the hardest-hit state of any in the country by far, having logged nearly 27,000 deaths as of Saturday afternoon. The next-hardest-hit state, New Jersey, had recorded over 9,100. 

Those numbers reflect a startling regionalism to the disease, which has brought much of the economic and social life of the United States to a grinding halt. New York and New Jersey also top the country's list for number of deaths adjusted for population, while Massachusetts, Michigan and Pennsylvania also fall in the top ten. 

Disease seems to strike in heavy regionalized pattern

Those concentrated numbers are reflective of a virus that seems to strike noticeably heavier in some locations than others, a pattern that has borne out in numerous countries around the world. 

In Italy, for instance---which earlier this year was nearly brought to its knees as the virus wreaked havoc throughout the country---the Lombardy region received the worst of the outbreak, with nearly 15,000 deaths as of Saturday afternoon. The next hardest-hit region, Emilia-Romagna, has recorded around 3,800 deaths. 

In Spain, meanwhile, the communities of Madrid and Catalonia have logged 8,552 and 5,471 deaths, respectively. Castile-La Mancha, the next-hardest-hit, has registered 2,713. 

Though New York City is the hardest-hit city in the country with as many as 20,000 coronavirus deaths, it has seen a relatively steady decline in both cases and deaths in recent days.