Quote:
Originally Posted by lagtight
Hey, Mr. Wookie, what's the red state versus blue state death toll right now?
Weren't you predicting more deaths in red states some time back?
I don't know what Mr. Wookie predicted, but this is a very dumb way to measure whether red states or blue states are doing a better job of responding to the pandemic. New York and New Jersey were hardest hit in this wave partly because of population density and heavy use of public transportation, but mostly because New York had by far the most cases two weeks before any states were locked down. In other words, New York had a big head start on infections spreading before any measures were implemented.
It is far from certain that New York will have a similar "head start" if there is a second wave. The hot spot for a second wave could be Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, LA, or wherever. If you are living in a city in a red state and thinking that New York is uniquely susceptible to a pandemic, you are badly mistaken. New York might be a little more vulnerable, but we aren't talking about an order of magnitude.
I'll put it this way. COVID is a respiratory illness. NYC isn't some sort of crazy outlier when it comes to prevalence of respiratory illnesses generally. New Yorkers don't get the flu or colds at a dramatically higher rate than people in a lot of other areas. So why should anyone assume that NYC will bear the brunt of a second wave of COVID?