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Canada has little population density outside it’s local hubs. The virus isn’t going to spread so easily there outside of localities. The USA has more metro area

Canada has little population density outside it’s local hubs. The virus isn’t going to spread so easily there outside of localities. The USA has more metro areas that are drivable to each other. It’s easier to spread in the USA. Look at the massive EU numbers and consider their density.

qwerty1234599 6y ago
Diseases mostly don't spread between strangers. They spread between family members, close relatives and friends. Everybody has those, even in rural areas. Look at past pandemics for reference, everybody was hit. The Spanish Flu spread in isolated arctic populations just as well as NYC.
maxerickson 6y ago
Rural places in the US are doing a dandy job of spreading it right now. In this rural county, daily new infections are at something like 400/million. That rate is arrived at with a big enough multiplier, but it is a reasonable basis for comparison. Our cumulative case / million is ~23000.
throw0101a 6y ago
At a country-level, I'm not sure any conclusion can be drawn for density versus (per capita) infection rates: * https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-death-rate-vs-population-density https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-death-rate-vs-po... See also: > We also find that after controlling for metropolitan population, county density is not significantly related to the infection rate, possibly due to more adherence to social distancing guidelines. However, counties with higher densities have significantly lower virus-related mortality rates than do counties with lower densities, possibly due to superior health care systems. * https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2020.1777891 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2020.1... * https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2020.1777891 https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2020.1777891
- chongli 6y ago
  I think that’s because population density is notoriously hard to measure. The problem is that most countries have a mixture of big cities, rural areas, and uninhabited wilderness. Taking the total population and dividing by the total land area does not tell you anything useful about the actual proximity in which most people live in a country. On that scatterplot you linked, Canada is way down there in terms of population density. Yet the vast majority of Canada’s land area is uninhabited wilderness to the north. Most Canadians live within a narrow band of cities running parallel to the U.S. border. In addition, a significant minority live in many scattered rural areas outside of that band. So the question is: how do you measure Canada’s true population density? Do you only look at the high density band? Or do you include the rural areas? Where do you draw the line between rural and wilderness? There’s no easy answer.

qwerty1234599 6y ago

Diseases mostly don't spread between strangers. They spread between family members, close relatives and friends. Everybody has those, even in rural areas. Look at past pandemics for reference, everybody was hit. The Spanish Flu spread in isolated arctic populations just as well as NYC.

maxerickson 6y ago

Rural places in the US are doing a dandy job of spreading it right now. In this rural county, daily new infections are at something like 400/million. That rate is arrived at with a big enough multiplier, but it is a reasonable basis for comparison. Our cumulative case / million is ~23000.

throw0101a 6y ago

At a country-level, I'm not sure any conclusion can be drawn for density versus (per capita) infection rates: * https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-death-rate-vs-population-density https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-death-rate-vs-po... See also: > We also find that after controlling for metropolitan population, county density is not significantly related to the infection rate, possibly due to more adherence to social distancing guidelines. However, counties with higher densities have significantly lower virus-related mortality rates than do counties with lower densities, possibly due to superior health care systems. * https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2020.1777891 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2020.1... * https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2020.1777891 https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2020.1777891

chongli 6y ago
I think that’s because population density is notoriously hard to measure. The problem is that most countries have a mixture of big cities, rural areas, and uninhabited wilderness. Taking the total population and dividing by the total land area does not tell you anything useful about the actual proximity in which most people live in a country. On that scatterplot you linked, Canada is way down there in terms of population density. Yet the vast majority of Canada’s land area is uninhabited wilderness to the north. Most Canadians live within a narrow band of cities running parallel to the U.S. border. In addition, a significant minority live in many scattered rural areas outside of that band. So the question is: how do you measure Canada’s true population density? Do you only look at the high density band? Or do you include the rural areas? Where do you draw the line between rural and wilderness? There’s no easy answer.