Five percent of New York City's population has fled since the coronavirus pandemic gripped the city, new smartphone data reveals.

From March 1 to May 1, about 420,000 residents of the Big Apple - home to nearly 8.4 million people - particularly from the wealthiest neighborhoods, reported The New York Times.

While there was relatively little change in some zip codes, others such as SoHo, the West Village, Morningside Heights, the Upper East Side, the Financial District, Midtown, Gramercy and Brooklyn Heights emptied by at least 40 percent.

Meanwhile, Manhattan's overall population has fallen by almost 20 percent as the lockdown enters its third month.

Income was perhaps the strongest indicator of how many residents in a particular neighborhood had fled. 

NYC has been the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak with more than 186,000 cases of coronavirus and more than 15,300 confirmed deaths with at least 5,000 more probable deaths. 

For its report, The Times looked at data provided by New Mexico-based Descartes Labs, a geospatial imagery analytics company.

The company used anonymous smartphone geolocation data to track where New York City residents were in February, and whether they left the city or not after the pandemic.