Why are 50 percent of the virus deaths in NY/NJ? Any ideas why Chicago and LA have not blown up?

Density.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVIGhz3uwuQ

too many people too close to each other in NYC. In Cal. esp SoCal things are more spread out and no public trans. I bet Chicago is just getting going

Old white men are dying.

Mass transit and density

Density prob does explain it...I didnt know Chicago was 1/3 dense as NY

Density

Rank Pop. rank City Persquaremile Square miles Population

1 1 New York, N.Y. 28,492 302.64 8,622,698

2 13 San Francisco, Calif. 18,868 46.87 884,363

3 74 Jersey City, N.J. 18,306 14.79 270,753

4 21 Boston, Mass. 14,190 48.28 685,094

5 43 Miami, Fla. 12,917 35.87 463,347

6 56 Santa Ana, Calif. 12,253 27.27 334,136

7 3 Chicago, Ill. 11,934 227.63 2,716,450

8 6 Philadelphia, Pa. 11,789 134.10 1,580,863

9 69 Newark, N.J. 11,788 24.19 285,15

One possible reason is that people infected from Wuhan and/or Italy traveled the NYC area.

Couple things about Chicago.

Our governor and mayor are corrupt tax gougers but they shut things down fast. Our schools, restaurants and public places closed a week before anything in NYC, even though we had very few cases at that time.

Also, I’m in the burbs and have heard the same story over and over—people sick for a week with high fever and cough and can’t get a test anywhere. They are not testing at all unless you are over 65 or you are hospitalized and severely ill. I do know one person who was actually tested and it’s been 9 days and they said the test is still at the lab waiting to be run.

Shitty personal hygiene

It's a filthy cesspool of people living on top of each other?

San Francisco shut everything down really early too. Six counties in the bay area have been under lockdown since the middle of March, more than a week before the statewide order came. There are certainly a fair number of cases in California but I've heard nothing about hospitals being overwhelmed. They really are "flattening the curve" here. The problem is, what is the end game? Won't cases and deaths spike as soon as they let us out of our homes to go back to work?

amkelley wrote:

San Francisco shut everything down really early too. Six counties in the bay area have been under lockdown since the middle of March, more than a week before the statewide order came. There are certainly a fair number of cases in California but I've heard nothing about hospitals being overwhelmed. They really are "flattening the curve" here. The problem is, what is the end game? Won't cases and deaths spike as soon as they let us out of our homes to go back to work?

Maybe in SF but not other parts of the bay area. SFs the only place here with significant use of public transport. We like our cars in the South Bay.

In California, they are not testing nearly enough. LA, San Diego, San Fran Bay area are probably much worse than they seem. I worry the testing is giving people a false sense of security and that CA is about to blow up. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see any reason why LA would be exceptional.

Funny how the places with the most shutdowns and restrictions end up having the most cases. It mirrors the rest of the world. Check Belarus and compared to Italy.

amkelley wrote:

... The problem is, what is the end game? Won't cases and deaths spike as soon as they let us out of our homes to go back to work?

The answer to avoid repeated cyclical shutdowns is to test everybody who could possibly have been in contact with a carrier, with results available within an hour after the test (there are --reportedly -- tests that can do this).

Then it's possible to take anyone with positive results into quarantine immediately, instead allowing them to continue as usual within their infectious period. Also, once cases are down to a minimal level, tracing every contact become a lot easier. The virus appears to be infectious for 10-12 days starting a few days after infection. If it's possible to take everyone infected into quarantine before, say, the 5th day, it cuts out more than 50% of the transmission cycle.

This is what S. Korea and Singapore have done to flatten their curve. If S. Korea can do it with a very urbanized population of 50 million, California can do it with our less dense 39 million.

Density but also tourism and travel. Let's remember New York City is the most travel to destination. It's also a major hub for international flights to stop and have changeovers

It could all, literally, be a simple matter of reporting deaths with the virus vs deaths because of the virus. Those who do the former will have vastly inflated numbers compared to the latter.

They didn’t shut down the subways fast enough. Cuomo sits on TV everyday playing the pity card, when he could have prevented much of this himself, along with the mayor.

I thought I heard officialst told Coumo in 2018 to be prepared for a virus spread. He did nothing. One can blame Trump, but in such a dense city, he is at fault, moreso.

Stopwatcher wrote:

Density but also tourism and travel. Let's remember New York City is the most travel to destination. It's also a major hub for international flights to stop and have changeovers

And air pollution is another big one. Chronic exposure to dirty, toxic air plus being old is recipe for disaster when exposed to a strong respiratory virus.