3 ms·

The US has a spectrum of responses. San Francisco and the entire state of California shut down early and hard and therefore is doing pretty well both in absolut

The US has a spectrum of responses. San Francisco and the entire state of California shut down early and hard and therefore is doing pretty well both in absolute cases and per capita. New York shut down much later and actually sent covid-19 positive patients to nursing homes and New York City kept the subway open throughout, so they represent roughly 25-33% of the US's cases and deaths on its own. If you add adjacent states (New Jersey and Pennsylvania), it gets over 50%. Iowa never had to shut down because people aren't on top of each other. Dig into the reports and media that you're reading and watching and pay attention to how many are about New York versus everywhere else.. NY goofed.

tripletao 6y ago
I agree that NY's response was bad; but how much of the difference between NY and CA is attributable to their response, and how much to pre-existing behavioral, genetic, environmental, or other factors? California (where I am) has lower population density than NYC, lower reliance on public transit even in SF or LA, an Asian population accustomed to wearing masks, fewer black people (who seem worse hit even adjusting for socioeconomic status, for a yet-unknown reason), warmer weather. How do you know what fraction of the difference in mortality is explained by those attributes vs. the government response? I say this not to excuse sending infectious patients into nursing homes, but with the goal of recognizing the tremendous uncertainty in almost all aspects of society's management of this disease. For example, Japan seems to be doing great, with no major lockdown and testing that's missing ~80% of cases (assuming 1% IFR, their 830 deaths imply 83k cases; but they've found only 17k). I strongly suspect that the Japanese response would have brought disaster in NYC or Lombardy, but I'm not sure anyone can confidently say why.

tripletao 6y ago

I agree that NY's response was bad; but how much of the difference between NY and CA is attributable to their response, and how much to pre-existing behavioral, genetic, environmental, or other factors? California (where I am) has lower population density than NYC, lower reliance on public transit even in SF or LA, an Asian population accustomed to wearing masks, fewer black people (who seem worse hit even adjusting for socioeconomic status, for a yet-unknown reason), warmer weather. How do you know what fraction of the difference in mortality is explained by those attributes vs. the government response? I say this not to excuse sending infectious patients into nursing homes, but with the goal of recognizing the tremendous uncertainty in almost all aspects of society's management of this disease. For example, Japan seems to be doing great, with no major lockdown and testing that's missing ~80% of cases (assuming 1% IFR, their 830 deaths imply 83k cases; but they've found only 17k). I strongly suspect that the Japanese response would have brought disaster in NYC or Lombardy, but I'm not sure anyone can confidently say why.