March 24, 2020

"New York is far more crowded than any other major city in the United States. It has 28,000 residents per square mile..."

"... while San Francisco, the next most jammed city, has 17,000, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. All of those people, in such a small space, appear to have helped the virus spread rapidly through packed subway trains, busy playgrounds and hivelike apartment buildings.... Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, said on Monday that the 'attack rate' — the percentage of the population infected with the virus — was nearly one in 1,000 in the New York area, five times higher than in other parts of the country.... The city now has more coronavirus cases per capita than Italy.... [Governor Andrew Cuomo] said... people had been gathering in parks over the weekend and not staying far enough away from each other. He said he was still awaiting a plan from the city to prevent residents — especially young people — from getting too close, perhaps by imposing more controls on public spaces and opening some streets to pedestrians."

From a NYT article titled "Density Is New York City’s Big ‘Enemy’ in the Coronavirus Fight."

NYC can't change the number of residents per square mile, but it can change density in the sense of distance between people. Here's Cuomo, yesterday, talking about a plan to reduce density (and chewing out the young people who go to the park as if it's a day in the park):

55 comments:

rhhardin said...

The bright side of huge transmission rates from closeness is that you get tiny transmission rates from distance.

If the curve rises fast going left, it falls fast going right.

Shouting Thomas said...

The plague is getting close. My son-in-law works in a critical infrastructure job. Although we live two hours north of NYC, his job brings him into contact with the hordes from the city.

Co-worker went home sick yesterday. We're anxiously awaiting the diagnosis.

narciso said...

And yet the bill only had 10 billion to fight the outbreak.

Rory said...

"...people had been gathering in parks over the weekend and not staying far enough away from each other."

My little township still has some parks "closed for the winter," including one huge one that's just ballfield after ballfield. It's ideal for people who want to exercise at a distance, but despite nagging they won't take down the barriers blocking the parking lot.

John Borell said...

Urban areas have always been hives of infectious diseases. It's why the rich had summer homes far away from the urban area.

I love visiting big cities but I'd never want to live in one. This is one of the many, many reasons.

MayBee said...

The left in this country keeps trying to push us into more and more density. Their whole plan over the last 10 years at least has been: Get people in cities where we can put them in trains and buses.

stevew said...

"Approximately 20,000 to 40,000 New Yorkers are currently arriving in Florida daily as they flee from the epicenter of the most explosive coronavirus outbreak. However, if the elderly are the most vulnerable; and if isolating the most vulnerable population is the best course of action; and with the largest population of older residents living in Florida; then why are New Yorkers allowed to travel to Florida?"

So wonders Gov DeSantis.

Gov DeSantis Press Conf

Gahrie said...

Urban areas have always been hives of infectious diseases.

Up until the creation of modern sanitation methods, and replacing horses with cars, cities have always been population sinks, places where more people die than are born. Constant migration from rural areas to urban areas seeking better opportunities kept them alive.

rehajm said...

the 'attack rate' — the percentage of the population infected with the virus — was nearly one in 1,000 in the New York area, five times higher than in other parts of the country

Incidentally, the 'attack rate' for a violent crime in NYC is 3.3 per 1,000....

David Begley said...

Yesterday Dr. Birx explained the wild predictions of millions infected which was used by the Governors of NY and CA. They ASSUMED there would be NO treatments or vaccines and it was OVER THREE years.

What Cuomo and Newsome did was grossly irresponsible.

rehajm said...

They ASSUMED there would be NO treatments or vaccines and it was OVER THREE years

Classic error. Systems are dynamic and not explained by static scoring...

narciso said...

context

Oso Negro said...

I would enormously enjoy a total quarantine of NYC. They don't like the rest of us anyway. Give them what they want, good and hard.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

NYC can't change the number of residents per square mile...

The coronavirus can...

Ralph L said...

Will the insurance and government bureaucracies have fits if they send overflow patients out of state?

Ralph L said...

Will the insurance and government bureaucracies have fits if they send overflow patients out of state?

Michael said...

So they don’t want us to get fresh air?

ga6 said...

Didn't they make a film about this? Kurt Russell? lee Van Cleff, Earnie Borgnine? Henry Dean Stanton.

rcocean said...

Fence in Manhattan and quarantine it. CF: "Escape from New York".

rcocean said...

We need to keep Manhattan's standard of living high, otherwise the Upper east side will move somewhere else. Its too bad "Hollywood didn't stay in New York.

Nichevo said...

And how can we forget to the deathless Adrienne Barbeau?

tcrosse said...

In the UK Boris has mandated a strict lockdown, à la France. This morning the Telegraph shows pictures of packed London tube stations. The cops are asking for guidance how to enforce. Those who can afford to GTFO are doing so.

BUMBLE BEE said...

The density of mental defectives in NYC is also vastly higher than most rural areas I've seen. If you're not there on an expense account, it really is disappointing. Some think it is FAAAAABulous. Loads of Canadians in Florida this time of year. The Cosmos balances things out.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

19 square feet per person is needed to maintain a 6 foot safe perimeter. 28,000 people per square mile works out to 1,000 square feet per person, not counting the extra square footage of multistory buildings. NYCs problem is that the population of Manhattan doubles during the day with workers who have to enter and leave.

Birkel said...

And Democratics were using HUD to reduce "urban sprawl" under the Obama Administration.

But we pre-miss that son of a bitch anyway.

Dude1394 said...

I would think that a page out of Japan would have helped. Masks and gloves.

Caligula said...

The New York subway is a nightmare, as there's no way to avoid crowding nor is there any practical way to keep surfaces clean. And city and commuter buses aren't much better.

Apparently New Yorkers are avoiding the subway to the extent possible, yet New York City is so densely populated that the City just won't function without it.

The NYC subway is much older and more extensive than San Francisco's BART, but a BART train is probably not such a great place to be either.

Bruce Hayden said...

Prediction - next big hotspot will be Florida, with anyone able to flee NYC and NJ fleeing there. Apparently, they are being quarantined, to some extent, but probably not nearly enough.

But this isn’t new. Issac Newton was (supposedly) hit on the head by an apple because he had removed himself to the country to escape a plague.

Birkel said...

If I were a New Yorker, I would be careful going onto ball fields.
Bernie Bro James Hodgkinson shot up a ball field.
There are lots of Bernie Bros in NYC.

And Nancy Pelosi's daughter approves the attacks.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

RE: NYC All of those people, in such a small space, appear to have helped the virus spread rapidly through packed subway trains, busy playgrounds and hivelike apartment buildings.


DUUUUUUHHHHH!!!!! Pointing out the obvious. The urban areas are cesspits with far far too many people packed together in unsanitary and antiquated conditions. Everyone breathing the same air, rubbing together, body fluids on everything. No wonder.

AND this points out the reason that not all of the United States should be treated the same as places like NYC or SF.

28,000 people per square mile. OMG!! What a nightmare. I would rather die than live like that.

The entire County that I live in, IF you divided everyone up and placed them in a square mile grid only has 51 people per square mile. (I did the math based on the 2018 data). Where I live, in the county, it is 7 people per square mile. We don't need to be TOLD to socially distance. We ALREADY are.

I don't mind "social distancing" because I'm not a social butterfly type of person. We still go out for essential chores, like grocery store, banking (using the atm machines instead of going into the bank), post office, drug store, GAS STATION where you see no one anyway because we have to pump our own fuel. Hubby is still working too. Essential. You want water? Your animals want water?

Basically life as usual, except the previous occasional breakfast or lunch out, is cancelled because the few local restaurants are closed....probably permanently :-(

Bruce Hayden said...

At least to some extent, the Democrat/Republican divide has been an urban/rural one for over a century and a half now. In the North, during the Civil War, the smaller towns and countryside voted for Lincoln, and volunteered to go fight slavery, while the Democrats in the big cities were the ones supporting slavery, and engaging in draft riots to keep from fighting. That has persisted to this day, with the fight between the parties mostly being over suburbia.

No one should be surprised that Pelosi’s Porkulus II CCP Coronavirus stimulus bill includes stimulus for more urbanization (as well as funding illegal immigration, of course). For example, it apparently pushes turning city streets into bike lanes. They seem bound and determined to turn the cities of this country into biking and walking meccas, like Wuhan and the other large Chinese cities. (Wuhan has amazingly similar density and population to NYC). Never mind that it was the Wuhan population density that allowed the pandemic get really started, and it is NYC’s population density that is blowing it up right now with COVID-19 infections. It is far safer to drive to the store to shop, in terms of being infected by an airborne disease like this one, than to bike, or esp walk and take mass transit. Yet, the dream that the Dems seem determined to shove down the throats of America is living in NYC, Wuhan, Beijing, etc level density cities. Their urban chickens are com8ng home to roost, and yet, they persist, as evidenced by their Porkulus II House bill.

chuck said...

April in NY City is the best month of the year. Keeping young people separated is going to be tricky.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

I was a city girl for a long time, but I've been living in the 'burbs now for over 12 years. I think they're a pretty good place to be right now. You can practice social distancing from your neighbors with no problem, but you're still close to medical facilities and ICUs if you need them.

I think of the large urban apartment buildings I used to live in. Even if you're walking to work and avoiding public transport, you're using (and touching) the same front door, elevators, stairwells, washing machines, etc. as everyone else in the building.

Bruce Hayden said...

The question then is why live cheek to howl in urban cesspits like NYC, or even San Francisco, with its ever changing maps of human shit on the sidewalks? It isn’t healthy. It hasn’t been healthy for many centuries. A lot of people move there for opportunities. And maybe stay because they are comfortable in the hive mind.

But why should opportunities be limited to the big cities in this Internet age? College can be run remotely, and done without the crushing overhead of all the diversity and other woke administrators. A lot of businesses can also be run remotely, as many companies are discovering. My kid now goes into work once a week to play with their lasers, since they have have carpeting, and their boss wouldn’t let them take one home as a result. Good friend has been working remotely for years, doing most of his work sitting on his deck, looking at the cliffs, with their mountain goats, across the bay. One of his partners did the same. Now the entire law firm has gone virtual for at least the interim. Most of the partners love it. They may never go back to a brick and mortar law practice. A lot of this is going on right now.

One thing that high density cities have had in their favor for a long time, is that the high density allows more intellectual collaboration. Smart people working together, and doing better collectively, than they would individually. But is that still the case? The tools for collaboration over the Internet are getting better and better.

My view right now is that the Democrats running their party, as well as much of their Woke Millennial constituency, are trying to fight history, in their desperate attempts to force the rest of us to live so densely in their squalid big cities. I don’t think that crowded urban living, at least here in the US, mostly very sparsely settled, is the wave of the future. Why not spread out a bit? It is healthier. And less and less productivity will be lost, as technology advances.

Ralph L said...

But the carbon, Bruce!

Yancey Ward said...

I wrote a comment almost 3 weeks ago that if I lived in one of the big dense cities anywhere, I would take a 6 month vacation in the country.

Northern Observer said...

Listening to Cuomo's daily hectoring, self-righteousness and spouting the obvious, as if he is prescient, has become intolerable. Initially his statements were helpful. Now he is receiving massive federal aid and he spends his time bitching about the inadequacy of the help. Infuriating.

Yancey Ward said...

With the social distancing drive closing restaurants, gyms, nail salons etc., tell this- why wasn't the subway and buses ordered closed in NYC at least 2 weeks ago?

Now, let me clear, I am not advocating that they be closed, but keeping them open seems contradictory to all the other closures ordered.

Yancey Ward said...

Seriously, I can't think of a more likely place to catch an infectious disease than a subway or a bus. Even a cab seems a high risk.

n.n said...

New York City: The Big Petri Dish.

Yancey Ward said...

However, this statement:

"the 'attack rate' — the percentage of the population infected with the virus — was nearly one in 1,000 in the New York area"

Is almost certainly false. There are 8,000,000 people in the five buroughs, such rate would be just 8,000 infected. I promise you this isn't even close to the actual number- this is just what is found in the people who are willing to be tested.

Bruce Hayden said...

“ But the carbon, Bruce”

Think of the carbon expended to fly Pelosi back and forth to CA every weekend. Last time she was Speaker, the Air Force used 757/767 military variants, since the small jets that they use for recent Republican Speakers would have to be refueled along the way, and we can’t have that - the Speaker being delayed by refuelings. Think about that - transcontinental jumbo jets being flown across the country every week just to get her sorry ass back and forth. Planes that routinely fly hundreds, flying just her, maybe with a handful of family and aides.

Andrew said...

"NYC can't change the number of residents per square mile, but it can change density in the sense of distance between people. Here's Cuomo, yesterday, talking about a plan to reduce density"

The virus will do the work to lower density.

Charlie Currie said...

After Trump announced the suspension of flights from China, NYC gave him the big middle finger and held their Chinese New Year parade, surely attended by recent arrivals from China. And, Italy did them one better with their, Hug a Chinese day.

TDS, is strong in them.

Calypso Facto said...

New York Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot, via Twitter, Feb 9, 2020:
"Today our city is celebrating the #LunarNewYear parade in Chinatown, a beautiful cultural tradition with a rich history in our city. I want to remind everyone to enjoy the parade and not change any plans due to misinformation spreading about #coronavirus."

daskol said...

I would do anything to avoid the subway right now, but the reason they can't close it is because it would prevent essential workers from getting to their essential work, including many in the healthcare sector. The only thing more disruptive to daily life in NYC than this virus driven shutdown, that I can recall in my life here is 9/11, a couple of major blackouts and a a couple of transit strikes. And the worst things about the blackout in many respects were the subway closures. Living through shuttered rail, subway and/or commuter, is the scariest time to be (trapped) in NYC, save literally the day of 9/11.

daskol said...

I like many parts of the US, although I wouldn't want to live in most of them. I also like many other cities in the world, especially London and even Paris, both of which, if they are not worse places to be at this minute, will be soon. NYers help each other out when shit gets rough. I'm sure that's only true up to a point, and past that point the thin veneer of civilization cracks and it's every man for himself, and then density is a very bad thing. Right up to that point, though, it's a great bunch of people to be trapped with, resourceful and helpful if a little direct. I'd much rather be trapped in London with a bunch of Londoners than stuck with millions of Parisians, a sentiment I heard echoed this morning by a Parisian trapped in Paris.

daskol said...

If you've ever traveled in the 3rd world, backpacking or at least off the beaten path, you know that Israelis, even if they're loud and irritating, are the best people to have around when shit gets hairy. NYers are as close to the American version of that I've found in America. It's got nothing to do with politeness or even neighborliness, maybe something to do with being stuck alongside one another in close proximity in a place that once in a while, even in good times, resembles too closely a steaming, belching hellpit.

daskol said...

You know, you're alright: about the nicest thing a NYer can say to a stranger, especially one of a very different racial/socioeconomic class.

RichAndSceptical said...

Total failure. Focus on the at risk population, not the population as a whole.

Use masks for population at large, and social distancing, isolation, and masks for at risk.

Much cheaper and a better chance of working.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne aka Doug Emhoff's Pimp Hand said...

Harvard president and his wife test positive for Coronavirus

Sure seems to be a lot of one percenters testing positive.

YoungHegelian said...

It's not just the crowding. It's the fact that NYC (and Los Angeles) is full of yuuuge immigrant communities that basically live in their own worlds with as little input from the "outside" world as possible. Often, these communities will have a "street level" command of English, but do not have the linguistic skills to follow the English language American press.

They also have a different level of what constitutes a "risk". Many of them came from some dodgy countries where the risk of death or injury was a daily fact of life. Thus, the logic tree for their behavior often looks like:

Am I dead yet?

If not, keep going.

If so, stop.


I mean, even as "relatively integrated" a community as the orthodox Jewish communities have been caught out having weddings & other gatherings. They probably have more than an inkling of what's going on. It's just that they just ignore information from the outside world.

daskol said...

In fairness to the Modern Orthodox, who are relatively integrated, the weddings and functions (and early Brooklyn-based spread of COVID-19) were in the entirely unintegrated ultra-Orthodox/Hasidic community.

Ryan said...

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

"Sure seems to be a lot of one percenters testing positive."

BTW, nice moniker. I'm south of the 101, also south of the 10, west of the 405, north of the 105, and east of the pacific ocean.

Ryan said...

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

"Sure seems to be a lot of one percenters testing positive."

I was gonna say: that's probably because they are getting all the test kits.

(Got distracted talking about freeways...)