Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[Oexmelin]

I have resolved to calling these protestors "paid actors".

[Syt]

https://pjmedia.com/trending/heres-how-much-downstate-new-york-is-skewing-the-united-states-coronavirus-numbers/?fbclid=IwAR1JBC-D3-dmeuaFYCFl8aezx6O6KCL82J54yfNIjRV0pFmShTFzV2FkS9I

Here's How Much Downstate New York Is Skewing the United States' Coronavirus Numbers

I live in New York State. But I live in Western New York—not New York City or downstate. If you ask anyone from downstate, they are New Yorkers. I am not. And quite honestly, I'm okay with that. I have no problem with not being lumped in with the downstaters.

Except I still am. New York is a hotspot when it comes to coronavirus cases and deaths, but that's only because of downstate. Upstate New York's coronavirus situation pales in comparison to downstate. New York City, in particular, was doomed due to the incompetence of local leaders, as well as other factors, such as population density and its subway system aiding in the spread of the virus.

Personally, I've thought for weeks we should be counting downstate New York separately from the rest of the country. So I looked at the numbers to see what happens when you separate downstate New York from the rest of the country.

The numbers are shocking. Downstate has been so heavily impacted by the coronavirus that it skews the United States when you compare us to the rest of the world.

Downstate New York technically includes New York City, Long Island, and the Hudson Valley, but I am only including Kings, Queens, New York, Suffolk, Bronx, Nassau, Westchester and Richmond Counties. These counties have a population of 12,205,796, according to World Population Review's numbers for 2020—bigger than many countries.

After compiling data for the top 30 countries with the most cases of the coronavirus, I ranked the top ten countries by confirmed cases per capita (per million) based on the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University's data as of 11:00 am ET on April 18, 2020.

Spain (4,100.67)
Belgium (3,208.30)
Switzerland (3,166.40)
Italy (2,851.95)
Ireland (2,831.23)
France (2,284.94)
United States (2,135.43)
Portugal (1,930.52)
Netherlands (1,853.88)
United Kingdom (1,698.42)
Right away we can see that the United States does not "lead the world" in coronavirus cases. Even with downstate New York in the mix, the United States isn't nearly as bad as the mainstream media makes it out to be. But here's what happens to the top ten once you treat downstate New York as its own country:

Downstate New York (16,230.65)
Spain (4,100.67)
Belgium (3,208.30)
Switzerland (3,166.40)
Italy (2,851.95)
Ireland (2,831.23)
France (2,284.94)
Portugal (1,930.52)
Netherlands (1,853.88)
United Kingdom (1,698.42)

Separating downstate New York from the rest of the United States shows us just how bad the situation there is. In fact, the rest of the country doesn't even rank in the top ten anymore (it comes in at #13).

But, as I've mentioned before, confirmed cases are not the best way to compare countries because of the discrepancies in testing between them. So, let's compare these countries by the fatality rate per capita (per million).

Belgium (470.51)
Spain (428.68)
Italy (376.19)
France (286.53)
United Kingdom (228.28)
Netherlands (210.86)
Switzerland (155.29)
United States (112.04)
Ireland (107.34)
Portugal (67.37)
Once again, even with downstate New York included, the coronavirus has impacted the United States much less than other hard-hit countries. But now, here's what happens when we treat downstate New York as a separate country from the United States in terms of deaths per capita (per million).

Downstate New York (848.45)
Belgium (470.51)
Spain (428.68)
Italy (376.19)
France (286.53)
United Kingdom (228.28)
Netherlands (210.86)
Switzerland (155.29)
Sweden (149.61)
Ireland (107.34)

Once again, downstate New York leads the pack and the United States (without downstate New York) doesn't even come in the top ten (it comes in at #11).

I should mention here that several countries are reportedly undercounting their cases and deaths, including Iran, China, and Russia. It's very possible that the actual case and death numbers for these countries are much higher, possibly even putting them in the top ten, but without reliable data I can't correct for this.

What we can see from the data is just how much downstate New York is skewing the data for the United States. What this tells us is that there shouldn't be a one-size-fits-all approach to social distancing or reopening the country. I feel pretty safe where I live, but because I'm in New York State and Governor Cuomo is treating the whole state like it is downstate, I have to abide by the same statewide restrictions. Further, if the media ever chose to look at the country's numbers the way I have, they'd see that the overwhelming majority of the country is doing much, much better than it appears to be when you include downstate New York in our numbers. The media wants you to believe that President Trump botched the federal government's response to the coronavirus. This is clearly not true. Even with downstate's tallies, we don't lead the world in cases or deaths per capita. Treating downstate as its own country shows just how much local leadership impacts containment and mitigation.

Note: All the data used for this post can be accessed via Google Docs.

UPDATE: I wanted to add the following graph of the Cumulative Cases for Top 25 Metro Areas that was presented by Dr. Birx during Saturday's Coronavirus Task Force Briefing that illustrates how the New York City metro area compares to other metro areas nationwide to visually demonstrate how severe and how unique the situation in downstate New York is.

TL;DR: NYC skews national statistics, and that's because of bad local politicians, while Trump is doing quite well.

I'm reminded of a discussion I had with my sister years ago, ca. 2010. I mentioned that if I were to visit them in the US I'd also want to spend some time in NYC and potentially other cities on the East Coast. She was adamant I shouldn't go to NYC, because it's a terrible place and I would just end up mugged, probably shot. She was not joking.

[Iormlund]

I'm confused. Isn't Trump president of NYC as well?

[Syt]

I'm confused. Isn't Trump president of NYC as well?

It's the basic playbook:
- good result: Trump did it
- bad result: someone else did it

[Tamas]

I'm confused. Isn't Trump president of NYC as well?

It's the basic playbook:
- good result: Trump did it
- bad result: someone else did it

Like religion!

[The Brain]

I'm reminded of a discussion I had with my sister years ago, ca. 2010. I mentioned that if I were to visit them in the US I'd also want to spend some time in NYC and potentially other cities on the East Coast. She was adamant I shouldn't go to NYC, because it's a terrible place and I would just end up mugged, probably shot. She was not joking.

And then the CHUDs will get you.

[Syt]

[DGuller]

That piece is obviously Trump propaganda, and the federal government is responsible for protecting all parts of the country against pandemics, but I do think there is a legitimate point there.  I think there is a high likelihood that two heroes of the moment will become villains once all this is over and response to the crisis gets investigated. 

I think Cuomo's ability to sound coherent in press conferences will pale into insignificance once people conclude that he was way too late and way too indecisive in acting.  I also think that doctors and nurses in NYC may turn from hero to zero if people conclude that collectively their response was incompetent and killed thousands needlessly even when taking contemporary knowledge and conditions into account.

[The Minsky Moment]

New York City is unique in the US in many ways, all of which in this case make it prone to the spread of this kind of infection.  It is has far greater population density than any other US city.  It also relies on a very dense, crowded and extensive subway system to move people around.  It is by far the largest port of entry for people arriving from Europe and is the most popular destination for such people, which had a huge impact in this case because:  (a)  Europe was a big vector for spreading the disease, (b) Trump did not shut down travel from Europe until very late, (c) as a result it appears there were an usually large viral introduction events into the NYC area, far more than into any other region.  New York also had an early super-spreader that both caused a very large cluster off the bat, but also focused initial attention on suburban Westchester as opposed to the City itself.  New York also has wide disparities in resources and large minority populations (eg as compared to San Francisco or Silicon Valley - other dense areas) which are at higher risk of infection and death.  Finally, New York has been testing at higher rates than most other states, which will result in more reported cases.

That probably isn't an exhaustive set of reasons.  To the extent that moving slow was a contributing factor, the most obvious contributor was the late shutdown of travel from Europe.

[DGuller]

By high testing rates, do you mean per population, or per suspected cases?  I hope they don't have a high testing rate per suspected cases, or NY doctors and hospitals are going to come off as incompetent butchers.

[PDH]

So I did a look at the numbers on the "Covid Hoax" thing, and guess what I found?  If you remove the number of deaths that the Lamestream Media is wildly using, you see this "crisis" is totally made up.

[Maladict]

I also think that doctors and nurses in NYC may turn from hero to zero if people conclude that collectively their response was incompetent and killed thousands needlessly even when taking contemporary knowledge and conditions into account.

How do you think they were incompetent collectively?

[DGuller]

I also think that doctors and nurses in NYC may turn from hero to zero if people conclude that collectively their response was incompetent and killed thousands needlessly even when taking contemporary knowledge and conditions into account.

How do you think they were incompetent collectively?

I have heard anecdotally that hospitals were often disorganized and making poor use of limited human resources, to the point where lack of organization led to people dying due to being forgotten about.  It also seems like the fatality rate of people being put on ventilators is 80% in NY, and only 50% elsewhere.  Maybe that means that in NY people were put on the ventilator only as part of a ritual of declaring them dead, but it's also conceivable that NY hospitals were simply not up to the job of keeping people on ventilators alive, which I understand is quite tricky and requires some level of skill.

[Razgovory]

If you die because you can't get resources due to the Coronavirus, you have died because of the Coronavirus.

[DGuller]

If you die because you can't get resources due to the Coronavirus, you have died because of the Coronavirus.

Yes and no.  Let's say you take a group of 1000 people with a certain kind of cancer, and randomly assign them to two oncologists.  The first oncologist has 5% of his patients die.  The second oncologist, unlike the first oncologist, gets overwhelmed with having to treat 500 patients on once, makes poor time management decisions, and has 10% of his patients die.  All 75 of the people who died died of cancer, and yet not all of these deaths were unavoidable.