Do population densities influence the spread of coronavirus? A new study in the Journal of the American Planning Association says no: “after controlling for metropolitan population, county density is not significantly related to the infection rate.”
Co-authored by Reid Ewing, one of the nation’s loudest proponents of smart-growth (meaning density), the study made a crucial mistake: it measured the population density of entire counties. But most counties in urban areas are only partially urbanized.
San Bernardino County, for example, has 2 million people and covers 20,000 square miles, for an average density of about 100 people per square mile. But 1.8 million of those people live on just 2.6 percent of the land, meaning a density of 3,400 people per square mile. Obviously, using 100 instead of 3,400 would drastically change the results.
In the past, I’ve called this a rookie mistake because any demographer should know better. Ewing is no rookie, which makes me wonder if he was
deliberately trying to produce misleading results.
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Fortunately, demographer Wendell Cox has done it right. He compared county COVID mortality rates per thousand people with the urban densities of those counties.
He found a clear correlation: higher densities mean higher mortality rates. The only exception was at the very highest density, more than 50,000 people per square mile. The United States only has one county that high in density, New York County, also known as Manhattan.
Cox suggests that mortality may be a bit lower in Manhattan than in the 25,000-50,000 category because Manhattanites don’t travel as far on public transit as residents of the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens (the counties in the 25,000-50,000 category) and because Manhattan incomes are higher so residents are better able to protect themselves by doing things like working at home or simply fleeing to lower-density areas. Whatever the reason, Cox notes, Manhattan’s mortality rate is still higher than the rate for areas with densities below 25,000 per square mile.
“He found a clear correlation: higher densities mean higher mortality rates.”
I would love to see those points displayed as a scatter diagram, with a trend line…piece of cake if you have the data in a spreadsheet.
And we’ve had this conversation before………
Japan and South KOREA have transit and high density galore……their infection rates were lower than US; as were there fatalities. The reason! Their public health sectors TOOK IMMEDIATE action instead of fucking around with what ifs and hypothetical. They looked after their elderly and put the necessary treatment medications.
Japan and South Korea in particular are vast sticklers to personal hygiene and sanitation. LONG before COVID-19, seeing Asian people with masks on was a common sight through out. Most westerners looked at as a certain degree of paranoia. The biggest reason of All. THEY DON’T TRUST CHINA.
But their preference goes back to post-war. After WWII Japan underwent a radical medical modernization, bodies found in the Post war rubble, thousands dead in bombed out cities their deaths were attributed to starvation and warfare conditions…….but US occupation of the islands and the insertion of medical examiners offices (autopsies) later attributed their deaths to tuberculosis and diseases of toxic environment and condensed settings and miserable hygiene.
South Korea during Korean war, healthcare; what little was available publicly collapsed. And thousands of US army/navy medical personnel were the only lifeline for a huge bulk of the Korean people. And remained so after the war.
Knowing full well US forces would inevitably leave, the 1950s those nations anticipating a US withdrawl took Every possible step to boost it’s health regimen as a matter of public policy and conscious effort. Knowing full well they didn’t have the resources to counter a public epidemic or have enough doctors available in case of a severe health shortage, they went on a two step method, One they subsidized state education to crank out more physicians/surgeons. Two they turned personal health and preventative medicine into a cultural practice and personal mindset for all to adhere to.
2nd America’s COVID fatalities I Doubt it. Because it’s become apparent they’ve been botched by lazy doctors who’d rather simply write COVID on death certificates. If you get shot, die from flu or cancer and you have COVID in your system….US Covid-19 deaths are probably HALF to 1/3. Which puts them on par with the deaths of Annual flu.
Twice as many people have died in Arizona (and rising) than in THE ENTIRE COUNTRY of Japan (and no one has died of Corona in weeks there).
In the Netherlands (the most densely populated country in Europe), like in Japan and Korea, no aone has died of Corona in weeks. Famously-dense Texas’s Corona deaths are rising and will likely exceed Netherlands in a week or two.
I agree that requiring everyone to wear masks and take other steps from the very beginning would have reduced mortality. But remember in the early stages no one knew how this virus was spread; there were even health experts who advised against wearing masks. There may be future pandemics, and if one of the factors influencing its spread is density, people are going to be wary of living in high densities in the future.
Also the culture in America is quite different from the culture in Japan and Korea. In those countries many people routinely wore masks before the pandemic. Americans are obviously not inclined to do that. If living at lower densities means people don’t need to wear masks, many Americans will choose the lower densities.
As far the Netherlands is concerned, it may be a dense nation but remember Cox is measuring urban densities, not country densities. Amsterdam is about as dense as Chicago and far less dense than New York.
“There were even health experts who advised against wearing masks.” Only in the US was anyone stupid enough to advise AGAINST wearing masks. That the virus spread via air was well known by that point.
“Cox is measuring urban densities, not country densities.”
And he failed to consider a single city outside of the US; I wonder why?
The 239 square miles of inner Tokyo (known as the Special Wards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo) is denser than New York City.
326 people have died of Corona in Tokyo, compared to 32,115 in New York City.
Early in the pandemic it wasn’t clear if face coverings would be helpful. Cloth masks certainly would not be able to filter out individual viruses and there was a lot of concern people would contaminate their masks and infect themselves taking them on and off. It was not understood the largest benefit would be in preventing exhaled particles from being spread as far. Of course, a lot has been learned since then and it is clear that cloth masks are very helpful, but I wouldn’t criticize those who did not recommend masks from day one.
I’ve been tracking this data for the last couple of months. The Netherlands has been able to slow transmission over the last month or so, but they absolutely did have a large outbreak of cases (and consequent deaths) in the early months of the pandemic. And neighboring Belgium still has the highest death rate in all of Europe among countries with over 1 million people.
Referring the density of Texas as a state (of 267,000 square miles) is meaningless. Most of the state’s cases are coming from its large urban areas — Houston and Dallas — and primarily from the more central counties in those urban areas (e.g. Harris County in Houston).
Another point about Asian countries, especially East Asian, is that they are more concerned about the possibility of viral outbreaks since many of the residents of those countries have seen other epidemics emerge in that part of the world in recent memory (SARS, H1N1, etc.).
Countries like Japan and South Korea are not only on heightened alert when the possibility of a new epidemic is posed, but they are also predisposed to not trust official statements from China about the prevalence of viral spread, and more willing to investigate claims about its spread (like China’s denial in late January that human-to-human transmission had taken place).
Lastly, I’d like to note some skepticism about the effectiveness of cloth masks in preventing the spread of the virus. The actual evidence base for this claim is remarkably thin and most studies of the effectiveness of masks in preventing the spread of COVID-19 examine the use of medical-grade masks (surgical masks and respirators), not the flimsy, loose-fitting cloth masks that are in wider use.
One of the strongest counterpoints to this claim is provided by LA County, which has had a mandatory mask ordinance in place for two months. Since then, daily case rates have nearly tripled and the state’s governor, with the tacit agreement of LA’s mayor, is suggesting a return to a stay-at-home order.
People can’t agree on whether masks help or not, but politicians lost all credibility on the issue when they encouraged protests and rioting without masks or social distancing.