5 ms·

> when it's clear that density is not driving spread That's not "clear" in the least.

by m0zg 6y ago

TMWNN 6y ago
epistasis is correct. Very few people live in the mountains and only come to town every six months. Density mattered a little bit early on, but SARS-CoV-2 is so infectious that it gets around no matter what, unless the strictest possible measures (such as the police-enforced lockdowns in parts of Melbourne at the moment, or the earlier reports of Chinese buildings' doors being welded shut) are adopted.
- m0zg 6y ago
  You'd do well providing some studies to support your assertion. Best I can tell, urban centers have suffered disproportionately from C19, and they present an epidemiological nightmare with their shared public infrastructure and public transportation.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    The thing that is really strongly associated with covid cases is housing overcrowding, that is the number of people in each dwelling, and not with density. This paper concludes that "Our most important finding is that density is unrelated to confirmed virus infection rates and inversely related to confirmed virus death rates, after controlling for other variables." https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2020.1777891 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2020.1...
    - m0zg 6y ago
      Lots of verbiage easily refuted by a simple statistic: NYC has C19 death rate of 2279 per million. 19K people died out of 8.337M. In comparison, NY state, as of today, has a death rate of 1693 per million, and it'd have a much lower death rate if NYC was excluded (1253 per million), and lower still if you only consider rural areas. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page
      - jeffbee 6y ago
        So, Tokyo? Seoul?
        m0zg 6y ago
        Not the same ball game, body count is so low you probably wouldn't get a reliable signal. And even then, I bet rural Japan and Korea are affected far less. It's simple common sense. R0 depends on fanout exponentially. On average, the higher the density, the higher the fanout. Downvote all you want, you know I'm right. :-)
        bluGill 6y ago
        Until you get to a extreme rural most people do the same things with the same density. Grocery stores and the like tend to have similar densities everywhere because if you get any more dense someone else opens while any longer less and someone goes out of business. This is my observation in towns from as small 3000 to as large as 2 million. Similar for other activities, there are less people at the school games or theater, but the density is the same.
        m0zg 6y ago
        Explain NYC.
        jeffbee 6y ago
        Initial conditions. Edited to add: and in case you continue to misconstrue my point, New York has _tons_ of overcrowded housing. I am by no means using density/crowding argument to wave away NY's problems. They have a severe housing crisis there.
        m0zg 6y ago
        Glad we've come to an agreement: high density urban living ("overcrowding" in your terminology) is an epidemiological nightmare with death rates ~40% higher than less dense areas.

> when it's clear that density is not driving spread That's not "clear" in the least.

by m0zg 6y ago

> when it's clear that density is not driving spread That's not "clear" in the least.

epistasis is correct. Very few people live in the mountains and only come to town every six months. Density mattered a little bit early on, but SARS-CoV-2 is so infectious that it gets around no matter what, unless the strictest possible measures (such as the police-enforced lockdowns in parts of Melbourne at the moment, or the earlier reports of Chinese buildings' doors being welded shut) are adopted.

m0zg 6y ago
You'd do well providing some studies to support your assertion. Best I can tell, urban centers have suffered disproportionately from C19, and they present an epidemiological nightmare with their shared public infrastructure and public transportation.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  The thing that is really strongly associated with covid cases is housing overcrowding, that is the number of people in each dwelling, and not with density. This paper concludes that "Our most important finding is that density is unrelated to confirmed virus infection rates and inversely related to confirmed virus death rates, after controlling for other variables." https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2020.1777891 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2020.1...
  - m0zg 6y ago
    Lots of verbiage easily refuted by a simple statistic: NYC has C19 death rate of 2279 per million. 19K people died out of 8.337M. In comparison, NY state, as of today, has a death rate of 1693 per million, and it'd have a much lower death rate if NYC was excluded (1253 per million), and lower still if you only consider rural areas. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page
    - jeffbee 6y ago
      So, Tokyo? Seoul?
      - m0zg 6y ago
        Not the same ball game, body count is so low you probably wouldn't get a reliable signal. And even then, I bet rural Japan and Korea are affected far less. It's simple common sense. R0 depends on fanout exponentially. On average, the higher the density, the higher the fanout. Downvote all you want, you know I'm right. :-)
        bluGill 6y ago
        Until you get to a extreme rural most people do the same things with the same density. Grocery stores and the like tend to have similar densities everywhere because if you get any more dense someone else opens while any longer less and someone goes out of business. This is my observation in towns from as small 3000 to as large as 2 million. Similar for other activities, there are less people at the school games or theater, but the density is the same.
        m0zg 6y ago
        Explain NYC.
        jeffbee 6y ago
        Initial conditions. Edited to add: and in case you continue to misconstrue my point, New York has _tons_ of overcrowded housing. I am by no means using density/crowding argument to wave away NY's problems. They have a severe housing crisis there.
        m0zg 6y ago
        Glad we've come to an agreement: high density urban living ("overcrowding" in your terminology) is an epidemiological nightmare with death rates ~40% higher than less dense areas.