{"id":3843,"date":"2020-03-22T16:50:37","date_gmt":"2020-03-22T21:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/?p=3843"},"modified":"2020-03-22T18:59:44","modified_gmt":"2020-03-22T23:59:44","slug":"disaster-in-new-york-does-not-require-the-same-policy-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/2020\/03\/22\/disaster-in-new-york-does-not-require-the-same-policy-everywhere\/","title":{"rendered":"Disaster in New York does not require the same policy everywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As of approximately 4 pm CDT this afternoon, Italy has the highest confirmed per capita infection rate<\/a> of any substantial country. There are 978 Italians confirmed with COVID-19 for every million people. Switzerland is not far behind, at 864 per million. There are a few micro states, the largest of which is Iceland (which has a smaller population than greater Des Moines), that have higher per capita rates, but the microstates have such low denominators that they are not very useful yardsticks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New York State has a whopping 810 cases per million residents, closing in on both Italy and Switzerland fast. And the vast majority of those cases are concentrated in the City and nearby commuter counties. Franklin County, in the Adirondacks (and where your Editor has been known to spend some time) has not yet had a single confirmed case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By contrast, the other 49 states combined, including such hot zones as Washington and California, are at 54 cases per million residents. That puts the per million infection rate<\/a> in the “other 49” just between Australia and North Macedeonia. Or China, if you care to believe Commie numbers. Which we don’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One question, of course, is whether the rest of the country is just “behind” New York by a few days, or whether there are important differences that should inform policy. We suspect some of both is true. Yes, New York is the land of stainless steel subway poles, where the virus once deposited will linger a particularly long time<\/a>, cheek-by-jowl restaurant tables, and terribly crowded sidewalks. But New York is also testing heaving masses of people, so it may be revealing its own infections more completely than other states that will soon catch up in the world’s most dubious league table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless, the vast difference in the apparent<\/em> rate of infection between downstate New York and the rest of the country (and the considerable differences among the remaining 49 states) suggests that we need not apply precisely the same policies in every jurisdiction. Even in New York State, we do not understand the logic, beyond mere political calculus, for imposing the same burdens on the already poor towns of the Adirondacks as are the bare minimum, if that, in the boroughs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are doing enough damage to the economy as it is without doing more than is necessary by treating everywhere, even everywhere in New York State, as if it were the Times Square subway station. Poverty kills as surely as Covid-19, and it may be the one thing we are producing as fast as virus particles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fearless state and local leaders, please use a scalpel, not a hacksaw, even if the Manhattan-headquartered national media demands a universal, maximum response everywhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As of approximately 4 pm CDT this afternoon, Italy has the highest confirmed per capita infection rate of any substantial country. There are 978 Italians confirmed with COVID-19 for every million people. Switzerland is not far behind, at 864 per million. There are a few micro states, the largest of which is Iceland (which has a smaller population than greater Des Moines), that have higher per capita rates, but the microstates have such low denominators that they are not very useful yardsticks. New York State has a whopping 810 cases per million residents, closing in on both Italy and Switzerland fast. And the vast majority of those cases are concentrated in the City and nearby commuter counties. Franklin County, in the Adirondacks (and where your Editor has been known to spend some time) has not yet had a single confirmed case. By contrast, the other 49 states combined, including such hot zones as Washington and California, are at 54 cases per million residents. That puts the per million infection rate in the “other 49” just between Australia and North Macedeonia. Or China, if you care to believe Commie numbers. Which we don’t. One question, of course, is whether the rest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coronavirus"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7t3qc-ZZ","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3843"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3849,"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3843\/revisions\/3849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}