21 ms·

The richer you are, the more likely you’ll social distance, study finds

192 points by rustoo 6y ago

__s 6y ago
People who can afford to socially distance & tend to be more educated & are most likely to be able to work remotely are more likely to socially distance
- t-writescode 6y ago
  And can afford food couriers for dinners.
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    Eh. I'm still on microwave dishes. It's been a while since I ordered food.
    - gameswithgo 6y ago
      You...could be...healthier?
      - Hamuko 6y ago
        I could be a lot healthier in many ways.
      - Triv888 6y ago
        That's probably true for 99% of us?
      - GuB-42 6y ago
        There is nothing unhealthy about microwaved dishes. In fact, frozen food, a primary candidate for the microwave, may be just as good as fresh food, sometimes better depending on the process and on how fresh the "fresh" food is. Also microwaving is actually a healthy way of cooking things. It all depends on what you put inside your microwave. Healthy food is healthy, junk food is junk, but the microwave has nothing to do with it.
        ska 6y ago
        This is true for at least a lot of frozen food, but doesn't speak to the distribution of available microwaved dishes. As you say healthy food is healthy, but there may not be a lot of it available in your local freezer aisle. Or there may, depends where you live and shop I suspect.
        imtringued 6y ago
        Yes but doesn't preparing the food require at least a semblance of a kitchen? I mean you need a fridge, a sink, a countertop and all the utensils. Adding a real stovetop/oven combo doesn't take up that much space.
      - grimjack00 6y ago
        So...what?
      - rhino369 6y ago
        Ordering in is probably just as bad unless you really go out of your way to order healthy.
  - 52-6F-62 6y ago
    Or a functional kitchen. It's one of the major factors for me in a dwelling. I used to have to make myself a loaf of soda bread as my only food for the week in my "kitchen" that was a stove and a sink in the corner of a room. Now that I'm a little more established I have a kitchen that my partner and I can both move about freely while we work on a meal and it never ceases to feel like we somehow cheated to gain such a luxury. So food can increase qualitatively in more way than one when you have more resources behind you! And it's certainly not a fact that's lost on people who are struggling
- Spivak 6y ago
  That doesn't track entirely because the behaviors they're talking about are wearing masks and staying 6ft away from people. Both behaviors cost nothing.
  - mindvirus 6y ago
    It could be a second order effect - the less wealthy you are, the more often you are required to not social distance (due to living situation and work etc) so in the times you can, there's less pressure or desire to.
    - willcipriano 6y ago
      That would seem to be a reasonable reaction. If people with jobs that don't really allow for social distancing were also the people the most worried about the virus, they would be under a great deal of psychological stress that they can't really do anything about. From a evolutionary standpoint it would make sense that the people most able to act around a threat are also the most worried about it.
  - timr 6y ago
    Poorer folks in New York City have drastically less space available for...pretty much everything. Even in relatively spaced-out areas, this is true. If you go to Central Park, you'll find that the density of people on an average day is far higher at (say) Harlem Meer than it is further south. There are simply more people who are sharing the same recreation space that is within X miles of the place they are living. Central Park is actually a silly example, because it's far better than most other parts of New York. Go to Fort Washington Park on an average sunny weekend, and the density of people is dramatically higher than Riverside Park, further south. And that's just recreation...poorer people have less time for that than rich people do. Go to Flushing, and people are cheek-to-jowl at pretty much all times, even though there's a big empty park right next door.
    - dcolkitt 6y ago
      > And that's just recreation...poorer people have less time for that than rich people do. At least in the US, the poor have significantly more leisure time than the rich. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/the-free-time-paradox-in-america/499826/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/the-fre...
bronco21016 6y ago
Seems logical and what my anecdotal experience has been from talking with friends and family. There is one exception. There is a small percentage of far-right and wealthy that largely ignores social distancing, in my experience. It does make sense though overall. The wealthier you are the more likely you are to have a significantly more comfortable living experience that makes social distancing more bearable. More access to food/grocery delivery, more access to entertainment and technology, more access to at home recreation/exercise equipment, more space in your home or the financial means to change that. The list could go on. In short money buys you space and things to fill your time alone.
- jolmg 6y ago
  > The list could go on. I'd think the biggest would be more freedom with respect to making work more compliant to social distancing.
- MartianSquirrel 6y ago
  I would tend to think the education level also plays a role, and considering wealthier individuals usually have a better access to education/are more educated (read correlation not causation here), said individuals might have a better grasp off what is happening. Edit: Remote working is also easier when you have an office job Edit 2: I hope more research like this will come out so we can prepare and protect the ones who are more at risk when the next pandemic comes. Uderstanding the risk factors and how a disease spreads is the first step of debugging it. Sadly it is the first pandemic where we have the necessary tools to track all the information and analyse it. We have been lucky the death rate was not much higher
  - nicbou 6y ago
    That makes sense, given how much statistics they throw at you. Logarithmic scales, R numbers, per-100000 values, percentages etc. That's on top of all the numbers you must remember to relativise the daily news. I wonder how much of it I'd grasp if I hadn't used maths since high school.
    - deleted 6y ago
thejellypen 6y ago
anecdotal but from what ive seen its the rich & entitled that dont care and do whatever they want. vacations, seeing groups anfnthen their families etc.
- chairmanwow1 6y ago
  But with lots of testing throughout, no?
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  entitled people doing what they want is a bit tautological
- lamontcg 6y ago
  there's plenty of normally rich and wealthy people who aren't the narcissist jet set who are just WFH through the whole thing. when you discuss "rich" you need to distinguish between the 99% narcissist kardashian class and everyone who is in the 90th percentile.
  - thejellypen 6y ago
    fair enough
- notriddle 6y ago
  > from what ive seen Have you been peeking through the windows of a bunch of rich people's homes?
mcguire 6y ago
"But the team found it was also much easier for people with more money to take extra safety measures. "Higher-income individuals were more likely to report being able to work from home and more likely to have transitioned to telework instead of losing their job. The researchers found the ability to telework emerged as a huge predictor of whether someone would social distance. Compared to somebody who continued to work, people able to telework were 24% more likely to social distance. "“The whole messaging of this pandemic is you’re stuck at home teleworking, that must be really tough so here are some recipes for sourdough starter, and here’s what you should catch up on Netflix,” Papageorge said. “But what about the people who aren’t teleworking? What are they going to do?” "The team found lower-income respondents faced increased chances of job and income losses due to the pandemic and limited access to remote work. They were also more likely to live in homes with no access to the outdoors – access to outdoor space was a very strong predictor of social distancing, the researchers found. People with access to open air at home were 20% more likely to social distance. "All of these burdens ensured those earning the least would have a harder time adopting social-distancing behaviors, which could have prolonged the pandemic, the team found. Social distancing was simply more practical, comfortable and feasible for people with more income."
jokethrowaway 6y ago
> the more likely they were to protect themselves at the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States Emphasis on "early stages". When there was no data available and before the issue was politicised, of course it made sense for people who could afford it to preventively self-isolate. Poor people simply didn't have an option (as in many other things).
godmode2019 6y ago
Sounds like sampling bias, also - ""The team found lower-income respondents faced increased chances of job and income losses due to the pandemic and limited access to remote work. They were also more likely to live in homes with no access to the outdoors – access to outdoor space was a very strong predictor of social distancing, the researchers found. People with access to open air at home were 20% more likely to social distance.""
octocop 6y ago
"The richer you are, the more money you have in your bank account, study finds."
- gred 6y ago
  Citation?
  - octocop 6y ago
    Yeah, sort of as a mockery to the OP title
- kenjackson 6y ago
  As I've gotten wealthier the amount of money in my bank account went up for a bit, but then it started coming back down.
justicezyx 6y ago
Wtf is this research?! People are dying and researchers trying to prove obvious things?! What's going on here? I cannot understand what's the rationale behind this post. At either researchers going later to show that being rich also correlates with longer life and happier one as well? What are all the inactivity happening in this country regarding the covid? Everyone seems content with their own life and comfortable with the obvious injustice and cruelty practiced between each other. In China, covid is treated as a issue that matters above anything one can think of. If there is any trace of new carriers, any outdoor activities are strictly traced and managed. People pay a lot of attention and very careful about daily work and life. How is this country are content with understanding that richer people usually more respect the safety measure? What an insane situation guys? Did you realize it?!
- wrs 6y ago
  Do we realize it?? Imagine listing all the insane things happening in the US right now. It would take hours. It’s incredible how fast people can normalize things that not long before would have seemed completely delusional.
- qntty 6y ago
  Do you have any suggestions for how an economist with this specialty could better contribute to the situation than doing research like this?
- thinkingemote 6y ago
  Chill out bro. You being stressed doesnt help you or others.
randyrand 6y ago
good self discipline correlates with lots of positive things.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Nacdor 6y ago
A lot of people have joked that there really is no "lockdown", there are just rich people staying home while poor people bring them things.
- rhino369 6y ago
  I'm not forcing people making $10/hr to work in a tight kitchen where social distancing is impossible. I'm supporting local restaurants!
- loveistheanswer 6y ago
  There's definitely some truth to that joke. Though it must be said that global lockdowns could end up doubling world poverty, according to the WHO. So by trying to mitigate the virus through global lockdowns, we may have inadvertently doubled the size of the most at risk demographic group (aside from the very elderly).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
some_random 6y ago
>“The whole messaging of this pandemic is you’re stuck at home teleworking, that must be really tough so here are some recipes for sourdough starter, and here’s what you should catch up on Netflix,” Papageorge said. “But what about the people who aren’t teleworking? What are they going to do?” We've kinda entered this situation where the most vulnerable people are being shamed while the most able are held up as paragons of society. There's a reason that stupid video of celebrities in their mansions singing was so hated.
- kenjackson 6y ago
  The most vulnerable aren't being shamed. The firefigher or nurse or plumber or grocer -- everyone respects that they are doing important work on the frontline. The people being shamed are the ones having 30 person parties for New Years. Whether it is Gavin Newsome or someone in the trailer park. Those are the people that are being shamed.
  - outside1234 6y ago
    And to be clear, should be shamed. It is just shameful to "continue on" with your life while our medical professionals are pulling 16 hour days with 0 capacity ICUs because you want to ski.
    - pcthrowaway 6y ago
      Are you saying skiing is particularly irresponsible if you're a competent skiier sticking to cross country, or courses which don't pose danger to you (not sure about the terminology as I don't ski). My understanding is it can be done fairly safely, and is a good form of exercise which doesn't require contact with others.
      - odessacubbage 6y ago
        the problem is that for most tourists skiing means taking like 3 runs, grabbing lunch and then barhopping or going to the pool. my understanding is that they're just holed up in their vacation homes living off take out this year. the biggest risk group are skico employees who have to use shared facilities. this is in all likelihood how i got sick and there have been lots of whispers that the infection rate between employees is very high although this has not been officially acknowledged.
GoodJokes 6y ago
The richer you are the more likely you CAN social distance
treeman79 6y ago
For people without kids, distancing is one thing. For those with small children it’s a whole different matter. Guess which group tends To have extra money. At a certain point social distancing is pointless. Have a small home with kids? Your not going to keep them locked up for a year without major issues. Us and neighbors eventuality gave up on keeping kids separated. At home learning in a big house is painful. I can’t imagine a small apartment. Once kids go back to in person schooling, Congratulations your getting Covid. A month after in person school started later whole family had Covid. Not fun, but have had worse. Very glad to finally get it over with. Kids only had a fever for one day. Had many friends lose or risk losing their jobs and businesses during the past year. So for many of them avoiding COVID may mean going homeless.
Taniwha 6y ago
We addressed this in New Zealand when we went into deep lockdown (only allowed out for exercise and supermarket, everything else closed) back in March - what the government did was essentially trickle up relief (we all know now that trickle down doesn't work) - what they provided was a wage subsidy that companies could claim to pay employees who were locked down's wages - not a fixed puny lump sum, not a gift to big biz, something to keep people connected with their employers so that after we could easily start everything back up again. It wasn't cheap, but locking absolutely everyone down for a couple of months was way cheaper that the alternative in the long run - surely the US could have done this - you pay far higher taxes than we do in NZ, money really shouldn't be an option
- apozem 6y ago
  The US should have done this. We could have done it. We don’t know the total economic damage yet, but I would wager it is already many times what it would have cost to do what New Zealand did. The problem is a huge chunk of the country flies into a rage at the thought of their tax dollars going to people who “don’t work.” Combine this with decades of Republican rhetoric about “welfare queens,” [1] separating the undeserving poor (read: black and Hispanic people) from the deserving poor... it convinces white voters to hurt themselves just so those people don’t get something that they don’t deserve. Racism warps American politics again and again and again. I used to live in Atlanta, a city with some of the worst traffic in the country. It lacks adequate public transit because white homeowners didn’t want black people coming to their suburbs [2]. So now everyone suffers. Our political system is diseased. [1]: https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/traffic-atlanta-segregation.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/traf...
  - asciident 6y ago
    I think it'd be the opposite reaction if the US adopted the NZ strategy. People would be outraged that the money is going to companies, especially large corporations where most people work. Someone would come up with the statistic that 80% of the money went to the richest 100 companies in the US or something.
qixv 6y ago
The title should really be something like “The nicer a home you have, the more likely you’ll social distance, study finds”. This seems closer to the causality which is implied in the article.
king_panic 6y ago
This was true even before the China Virus
andy-x 6y ago
I wish it was the opposite - the more you social-distance the richer you get :)
themaninthedark 6y ago
The idea of being able to socially distance and work from home is one that is very much rooted in white collar and office jobs mindset. Here is a paraphrasing of a conversation I had with my cousin who works as a research scientist for vaccines(not COVID), I am a production engineer at a manufacturing facility. Cousin:"If we just locked down everything for a month or two, Covid would be gone" Me:"I don't think we have food in the house to last 2 months" C:"Well, grocery stores would still have to stay open I guess..." So we need food, that keeps grocery stores open. Need delivery to the store, that keeps gas stations open. Need to repair cars, garages are now open. Keep unpacking things and you begin to see that there is a lot that is essential. Now, you could help limit things by saying only 1 grocery store in 5 mile radius can be open but who gets to pick which store? Keep the Whole Foods open or the Kroger?
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Not surprising at all. The less rich you are the more you have bigger problems.
GuB-42 6y ago
I wonder if the trend reverses when we get to the ultra-rich. The richest people are often leaders, celebrities, etc... They are constantly moving and meeting people, and they are also more likely to have personnel in their house, and maybe a chauffeur, bodyguards, etc...
- paxys 6y ago
  The "ultra rich" are CEOs, business owners and mostly people with generational family wealth.
brutal_chaos_ 6y ago
I am probably in the minority here on HN and I'd like you to pay attention to this part from TFA: "But the team found it was also much easier for people with more money to take extra safety measures." I am vulnerable due to pre-existing conditions. Currently my partner works retail-it is open and the workers are not considered essential/front line and will be in the last group to get vaccinated-because we need money of course. We live in a studio together, I'm afraid one or both of us may not make it through this pandemic. Every day we do everything we can, but all it can take is one slip. I am only one of many who share a similar story in the US and I believe it needs way more attention.
asdff 6y ago
It's glaringly evident when you see this mapped. Here is LA county, the hot spots are some of the poorest areas, while the wealthy along the hills are scarcely in a pandemic by comparison: http://dashboard.publichealth.lacounty.gov/covid19_surveillance_dashboard/ http://dashboard.publichealth.lacounty.gov/covid19_surveilla... And it is no surprise considering most poor living situations in LA county are overcrowded where it would be difficult to distance, to the point of 1880s nyc tenemant conditions, and the working poor are more likely to be called into work as an essential worker than someone with a white collar job that can be done at home.
shakezula 6y ago
My poor friends are a lot more likely to smoke. Education probably plays a role in adherence to these types of public safety measures.
- jmoss20 6y ago
  Unclear which way the causal arrow goes.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    I feel like education is the bigger factor.
draklor40 6y ago
The Richer you are, most likely the more you can make a living with Remote work (white collar) and can afford to shop online and get it delivered home. Doesn't need no damn study for concluding this.
- bradlys 6y ago
  Shopping online is frequently cheaper... unless you’re talking about groceries only. Even then, is grocery shopping really a large source of people getting covid?
ficklepickle 6y ago
Well I must be the poorest rich person because I've gone full hikikomori
jariel 6y ago
Is this due to predicament or levels of conscientiousness? I've seen both, first-hand: working class people in more challenging scenarios, at the very same time almost a perfect correlation of 'risk aversion conscientiousness' with more wealth.
mrtweetyhack 6y ago
wealth has something to do with intelligence? You don't say!
known 6y ago
Rich prefer more freedom and hence buy/live in Islands

192 points by rustoo 6y ago

__s 6y ago

People who can afford to socially distance & tend to be more educated & are most likely to be able to work remotely are more likely to socially distance

t-writescode 6y ago
And can afford food couriers for dinners.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  Eh. I'm still on microwave dishes. It's been a while since I ordered food.
  - gameswithgo 6y ago
    You...could be...healthier?
    - Hamuko 6y ago
      I could be a lot healthier in many ways.
    - Triv888 6y ago
      That's probably true for 99% of us?
    - GuB-42 6y ago
      There is nothing unhealthy about microwaved dishes. In fact, frozen food, a primary candidate for the microwave, may be just as good as fresh food, sometimes better depending on the process and on how fresh the "fresh" food is. Also microwaving is actually a healthy way of cooking things. It all depends on what you put inside your microwave. Healthy food is healthy, junk food is junk, but the microwave has nothing to do with it.
      - ska 6y ago
        This is true for at least a lot of frozen food, but doesn't speak to the distribution of available microwaved dishes. As you say healthy food is healthy, but there may not be a lot of it available in your local freezer aisle. Or there may, depends where you live and shop I suspect.
      - imtringued 6y ago
        Yes but doesn't preparing the food require at least a semblance of a kitchen? I mean you need a fridge, a sink, a countertop and all the utensils. Adding a real stovetop/oven combo doesn't take up that much space.
    - grimjack00 6y ago
      So...what?
    - rhino369 6y ago
      Ordering in is probably just as bad unless you really go out of your way to order healthy.
- 52-6F-62 6y ago
  Or a functional kitchen. It's one of the major factors for me in a dwelling. I used to have to make myself a loaf of soda bread as my only food for the week in my "kitchen" that was a stove and a sink in the corner of a room. Now that I'm a little more established I have a kitchen that my partner and I can both move about freely while we work on a meal and it never ceases to feel like we somehow cheated to gain such a luxury. So food can increase qualitatively in more way than one when you have more resources behind you! And it's certainly not a fact that's lost on people who are struggling
Spivak 6y ago
That doesn't track entirely because the behaviors they're talking about are wearing masks and staying 6ft away from people. Both behaviors cost nothing.
- mindvirus 6y ago
  It could be a second order effect - the less wealthy you are, the more often you are required to not social distance (due to living situation and work etc) so in the times you can, there's less pressure or desire to.
  - willcipriano 6y ago
    That would seem to be a reasonable reaction. If people with jobs that don't really allow for social distancing were also the people the most worried about the virus, they would be under a great deal of psychological stress that they can't really do anything about. From a evolutionary standpoint it would make sense that the people most able to act around a threat are also the most worried about it.
- timr 6y ago
  Poorer folks in New York City have drastically less space available for...pretty much everything. Even in relatively spaced-out areas, this is true. If you go to Central Park, you'll find that the density of people on an average day is far higher at (say) Harlem Meer than it is further south. There are simply more people who are sharing the same recreation space that is within X miles of the place they are living. Central Park is actually a silly example, because it's far better than most other parts of New York. Go to Fort Washington Park on an average sunny weekend, and the density of people is dramatically higher than Riverside Park, further south. And that's just recreation...poorer people have less time for that than rich people do. Go to Flushing, and people are cheek-to-jowl at pretty much all times, even though there's a big empty park right next door.
  - dcolkitt 6y ago
    > And that's just recreation...poorer people have less time for that than rich people do. At least in the US, the poor have significantly more leisure time than the rich. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/the-free-time-paradox-in-america/499826/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/the-fre...

bronco21016 6y ago

Seems logical and what my anecdotal experience has been from talking with friends and family. There is one exception. There is a small percentage of far-right and wealthy that largely ignores social distancing, in my experience. It does make sense though overall. The wealthier you are the more likely you are to have a significantly more comfortable living experience that makes social distancing more bearable. More access to food/grocery delivery, more access to entertainment and technology, more access to at home recreation/exercise equipment, more space in your home or the financial means to change that. The list could go on. In short money buys you space and things to fill your time alone.

jolmg 6y ago
> The list could go on. I'd think the biggest would be more freedom with respect to making work more compliant to social distancing.
MartianSquirrel 6y ago
I would tend to think the education level also plays a role, and considering wealthier individuals usually have a better access to education/are more educated (read correlation not causation here), said individuals might have a better grasp off what is happening. Edit: Remote working is also easier when you have an office job Edit 2: I hope more research like this will come out so we can prepare and protect the ones who are more at risk when the next pandemic comes. Uderstanding the risk factors and how a disease spreads is the first step of debugging it. Sadly it is the first pandemic where we have the necessary tools to track all the information and analyse it. We have been lucky the death rate was not much higher
- nicbou 6y ago
  That makes sense, given how much statistics they throw at you. Logarithmic scales, R numbers, per-100000 values, percentages etc. That's on top of all the numbers you must remember to relativise the daily news. I wonder how much of it I'd grasp if I hadn't used maths since high school.
  - deleted 6y ago

thejellypen 6y ago

anecdotal but from what ive seen its the rich & entitled that dont care and do whatever they want. vacations, seeing groups anfnthen their families etc.

chairmanwow1 6y ago
But with lots of testing throughout, no?
gameswithgo 6y ago
entitled people doing what they want is a bit tautological
lamontcg 6y ago
there's plenty of normally rich and wealthy people who aren't the narcissist jet set who are just WFH through the whole thing. when you discuss "rich" you need to distinguish between the 99% narcissist kardashian class and everyone who is in the 90th percentile.
- thejellypen 6y ago
  fair enough
notriddle 6y ago
> from what ive seen Have you been peeking through the windows of a bunch of rich people's homes?

mcguire 6y ago

"But the team found it was also much easier for people with more money to take extra safety measures. "Higher-income individuals were more likely to report being able to work from home and more likely to have transitioned to telework instead of losing their job. The researchers found the ability to telework emerged as a huge predictor of whether someone would social distance. Compared to somebody who continued to work, people able to telework were 24% more likely to social distance. "“The whole messaging of this pandemic is you’re stuck at home teleworking, that must be really tough so here are some recipes for sourdough starter, and here’s what you should catch up on Netflix,” Papageorge said. “But what about the people who aren’t teleworking? What are they going to do?” "The team found lower-income respondents faced increased chances of job and income losses due to the pandemic and limited access to remote work. They were also more likely to live in homes with no access to the outdoors – access to outdoor space was a very strong predictor of social distancing, the researchers found. People with access to open air at home were 20% more likely to social distance. "All of these burdens ensured those earning the least would have a harder time adopting social-distancing behaviors, which could have prolonged the pandemic, the team found. Social distancing was simply more practical, comfortable and feasible for people with more income."

jokethrowaway 6y ago

> the more likely they were to protect themselves at the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States Emphasis on "early stages". When there was no data available and before the issue was politicised, of course it made sense for people who could afford it to preventively self-isolate. Poor people simply didn't have an option (as in many other things).

godmode2019 6y ago

Sounds like sampling bias, also - ""The team found lower-income respondents faced increased chances of job and income losses due to the pandemic and limited access to remote work. They were also more likely to live in homes with no access to the outdoors – access to outdoor space was a very strong predictor of social distancing, the researchers found. People with access to open air at home were 20% more likely to social distance.""

octocop 6y ago

"The richer you are, the more money you have in your bank account, study finds."

gred 6y ago
Citation?
- octocop 6y ago
  Yeah, sort of as a mockery to the OP title
kenjackson 6y ago
As I've gotten wealthier the amount of money in my bank account went up for a bit, but then it started coming back down.

justicezyx 6y ago

Wtf is this research?! People are dying and researchers trying to prove obvious things?! What's going on here? I cannot understand what's the rationale behind this post. At either researchers going later to show that being rich also correlates with longer life and happier one as well? What are all the inactivity happening in this country regarding the covid? Everyone seems content with their own life and comfortable with the obvious injustice and cruelty practiced between each other. In China, covid is treated as a issue that matters above anything one can think of. If there is any trace of new carriers, any outdoor activities are strictly traced and managed. People pay a lot of attention and very careful about daily work and life. How is this country are content with understanding that richer people usually more respect the safety measure? What an insane situation guys? Did you realize it?!

wrs 6y ago
Do we realize it?? Imagine listing all the insane things happening in the US right now. It would take hours. It’s incredible how fast people can normalize things that not long before would have seemed completely delusional.
qntty 6y ago
Do you have any suggestions for how an economist with this specialty could better contribute to the situation than doing research like this?
thinkingemote 6y ago
Chill out bro. You being stressed doesnt help you or others.

randyrand 6y ago

good self discipline correlates with lots of positive things.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Nacdor 6y ago

A lot of people have joked that there really is no "lockdown", there are just rich people staying home while poor people bring them things.

rhino369 6y ago
I'm not forcing people making $10/hr to work in a tight kitchen where social distancing is impossible. I'm supporting local restaurants!
loveistheanswer 6y ago
There's definitely some truth to that joke. Though it must be said that global lockdowns could end up doubling world poverty, according to the WHO. So by trying to mitigate the virus through global lockdowns, we may have inadvertently doubled the size of the most at risk demographic group (aside from the very elderly).

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

some_random 6y ago

>“The whole messaging of this pandemic is you’re stuck at home teleworking, that must be really tough so here are some recipes for sourdough starter, and here’s what you should catch up on Netflix,” Papageorge said. “But what about the people who aren’t teleworking? What are they going to do?” We've kinda entered this situation where the most vulnerable people are being shamed while the most able are held up as paragons of society. There's a reason that stupid video of celebrities in their mansions singing was so hated.

kenjackson 6y ago
The most vulnerable aren't being shamed. The firefigher or nurse or plumber or grocer -- everyone respects that they are doing important work on the frontline. The people being shamed are the ones having 30 person parties for New Years. Whether it is Gavin Newsome or someone in the trailer park. Those are the people that are being shamed.
- outside1234 6y ago
  And to be clear, should be shamed. It is just shameful to "continue on" with your life while our medical professionals are pulling 16 hour days with 0 capacity ICUs because you want to ski.
  - pcthrowaway 6y ago
    Are you saying skiing is particularly irresponsible if you're a competent skiier sticking to cross country, or courses which don't pose danger to you (not sure about the terminology as I don't ski). My understanding is it can be done fairly safely, and is a good form of exercise which doesn't require contact with others.
    - odessacubbage 6y ago
      the problem is that for most tourists skiing means taking like 3 runs, grabbing lunch and then barhopping or going to the pool. my understanding is that they're just holed up in their vacation homes living off take out this year. the biggest risk group are skico employees who have to use shared facilities. this is in all likelihood how i got sick and there have been lots of whispers that the infection rate between employees is very high although this has not been officially acknowledged.

GoodJokes 6y ago

The richer you are the more likely you CAN social distance

treeman79 6y ago

For people without kids, distancing is one thing. For those with small children it’s a whole different matter. Guess which group tends To have extra money. At a certain point social distancing is pointless. Have a small home with kids? Your not going to keep them locked up for a year without major issues. Us and neighbors eventuality gave up on keeping kids separated. At home learning in a big house is painful. I can’t imagine a small apartment. Once kids go back to in person schooling, Congratulations your getting Covid. A month after in person school started later whole family had Covid. Not fun, but have had worse. Very glad to finally get it over with. Kids only had a fever for one day. Had many friends lose or risk losing their jobs and businesses during the past year. So for many of them avoiding COVID may mean going homeless.

Taniwha 6y ago

We addressed this in New Zealand when we went into deep lockdown (only allowed out for exercise and supermarket, everything else closed) back in March - what the government did was essentially trickle up relief (we all know now that trickle down doesn't work) - what they provided was a wage subsidy that companies could claim to pay employees who were locked down's wages - not a fixed puny lump sum, not a gift to big biz, something to keep people connected with their employers so that after we could easily start everything back up again. It wasn't cheap, but locking absolutely everyone down for a couple of months was way cheaper that the alternative in the long run - surely the US could have done this - you pay far higher taxes than we do in NZ, money really shouldn't be an option

apozem 6y ago
The US should have done this. We could have done it. We don’t know the total economic damage yet, but I would wager it is already many times what it would have cost to do what New Zealand did. The problem is a huge chunk of the country flies into a rage at the thought of their tax dollars going to people who “don’t work.” Combine this with decades of Republican rhetoric about “welfare queens,” [1] separating the undeserving poor (read: black and Hispanic people) from the deserving poor... it convinces white voters to hurt themselves just so those people don’t get something that they don’t deserve. Racism warps American politics again and again and again. I used to live in Atlanta, a city with some of the worst traffic in the country. It lacks adequate public transit because white homeowners didn’t want black people coming to their suburbs [2]. So now everyone suffers. Our political system is diseased. [1]: https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/traffic-atlanta-segregation.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/traf...
- asciident 6y ago
  I think it'd be the opposite reaction if the US adopted the NZ strategy. People would be outraged that the money is going to companies, especially large corporations where most people work. Someone would come up with the statistic that 80% of the money went to the richest 100 companies in the US or something.

qixv 6y ago

The title should really be something like “The nicer a home you have, the more likely you’ll social distance, study finds”. This seems closer to the causality which is implied in the article.

king_panic 6y ago

This was true even before the China Virus

andy-x 6y ago

I wish it was the opposite - the more you social-distance the richer you get :)

themaninthedark 6y ago

The idea of being able to socially distance and work from home is one that is very much rooted in white collar and office jobs mindset. Here is a paraphrasing of a conversation I had with my cousin who works as a research scientist for vaccines(not COVID), I am a production engineer at a manufacturing facility. Cousin:"If we just locked down everything for a month or two, Covid would be gone" Me:"I don't think we have food in the house to last 2 months" C:"Well, grocery stores would still have to stay open I guess..." So we need food, that keeps grocery stores open. Need delivery to the store, that keeps gas stations open. Need to repair cars, garages are now open. Keep unpacking things and you begin to see that there is a lot that is essential. Now, you could help limit things by saying only 1 grocery store in 5 mile radius can be open but who gets to pick which store? Keep the Whole Foods open or the Kroger?

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

Not surprising at all. The less rich you are the more you have bigger problems.

GuB-42 6y ago

I wonder if the trend reverses when we get to the ultra-rich. The richest people are often leaders, celebrities, etc... They are constantly moving and meeting people, and they are also more likely to have personnel in their house, and maybe a chauffeur, bodyguards, etc...

paxys 6y ago
The "ultra rich" are CEOs, business owners and mostly people with generational family wealth.

brutal_chaos_ 6y ago

I am probably in the minority here on HN and I'd like you to pay attention to this part from TFA: "But the team found it was also much easier for people with more money to take extra safety measures." I am vulnerable due to pre-existing conditions. Currently my partner works retail-it is open and the workers are not considered essential/front line and will be in the last group to get vaccinated-because we need money of course. We live in a studio together, I'm afraid one or both of us may not make it through this pandemic. Every day we do everything we can, but all it can take is one slip. I am only one of many who share a similar story in the US and I believe it needs way more attention.

asdff 6y ago

It's glaringly evident when you see this mapped. Here is LA county, the hot spots are some of the poorest areas, while the wealthy along the hills are scarcely in a pandemic by comparison: http://dashboard.publichealth.lacounty.gov/covid19_surveillance_dashboard/ http://dashboard.publichealth.lacounty.gov/covid19_surveilla... And it is no surprise considering most poor living situations in LA county are overcrowded where it would be difficult to distance, to the point of 1880s nyc tenemant conditions, and the working poor are more likely to be called into work as an essential worker than someone with a white collar job that can be done at home.

shakezula 6y ago

My poor friends are a lot more likely to smoke. Education probably plays a role in adherence to these types of public safety measures.

jmoss20 6y ago
Unclear which way the causal arrow goes.
- imtringued 6y ago
  I feel like education is the bigger factor.

draklor40 6y ago

The Richer you are, most likely the more you can make a living with Remote work (white collar) and can afford to shop online and get it delivered home. Doesn't need no damn study for concluding this.

bradlys 6y ago
Shopping online is frequently cheaper... unless you’re talking about groceries only. Even then, is grocery shopping really a large source of people getting covid?

ficklepickle 6y ago

Well I must be the poorest rich person because I've gone full hikikomori

jariel 6y ago

Is this due to predicament or levels of conscientiousness? I've seen both, first-hand: working class people in more challenging scenarios, at the very same time almost a perfect correlation of 'risk aversion conscientiousness' with more wealth.

mrtweetyhack 6y ago

wealth has something to do with intelligence? You don't say!

known 6y ago

Rich prefer more freedom and hence buy/live in Islands