Although I am sorely tempted I will not fisk the latest New York Times editorial, calling for an “all-in” effort (read: nationalized) to rescue the city from the consequences of its own folly. I’ll limit myself to remarks on this sentence:
Public health experts say wide-scale testing has saved lives in countries like South Korea and Germany, which have seen far fewer deaths from Covid-19 than the United States.
That’s an example of something called “lying with statistics”. While true when looked at from 50,000 feet, that doesn’t tell the whole story.
A quarter of all cases and fully half of the deaths due to COVID-19 in the entire United States are in New York State. 70% of New York State’s cases and deaths are in the counties of the New York City metropolitan area. Do the math. Moreover, the adjacent areas of New Jersey and Connecticut, essentially bedroom communities of New York City, add even more to the NYC cases and deaths.
To place that in perspective the number of cases and deaths, adjusted for population, in Illinois is 10% of New York State’s while California’s is 3%. In other words when you exclude the New York Metropolitan Area from your figures for the United States, the U. S.’s cases and deaths due to COVID-19, adjusted for population, are actually better than Germany’s and approaching South Korea’s.
The inescapable conclusion is that there is a serious COVID-19 outbreak in the NYC MSA, coping with it will require federal resources, and extraordinary measures will be required. In a sense that’s good news. The logistics of dealing with New York’s problem are manageable; extending it to the entire United States is impractical.
I won’t even hazard a guess as to why New York has this problem. There is no shortage of prospective reasons. Population density, reliance on subways, more extensive contacts with Europe, inadequate health care resources for a city of that size, the list goes on. I will only point out that the way you determine if there’s enough light in a reading room is if you have enough light to read by.
Here’s my modest proposal for dealing with the outbreak. First, close the NYC MSA, by force if necessary. No one goes in or out except to deliver necessary supplies or assistance. Second, focus national testing efforts and PPE deliveries on the NYC MSA. Test everybody, again by force if necessary. That alone is a daunting task. There are 20 million people in the NYC MSA. The entire U. S. has conducted about 3.5 million SARS-CoV-2 tests to date.
Third, shut down all public transport within the NYC MSA. That will slow the spread of the disease. Fourth, no one would be allowed out of the cordon sanitaire unless, after a two week mandatory quarantine, they test negative for the disease.
Finally, the quarantine will not be lifted until everyone within it has recovered from the disease, died, or a vaccine for it has been discovered.
The plan may cost trillions. It should be treated as a loan to the people of the NYC MSA. A surtax should be levied on residents of the NYC MSA so that the loan may be repaid over a period of 10 yearS. That should also serve to mitigate future risks.
I fully recognize that this plan is a non-starter. It has serious logistical, moral, legal, and civil rights issues. But that’s what an “all-in” plan would look like.
De Blasio is telling New Yorkers to use the subway. I’d do the cordon sanitaire, and skip the rest. The problem will solve itself.
There is data that show > 40% of essential workers in NYC use mass transit.
To shut mass transit the city would need to take responsibility of ferrying these workers around — it could be done (repurpose the taxi fleet)… or put the workers a hotel within walking distance of their Job.
I would also propose voluntary out of home quarantine / isolation facilities. You pay each person that may be sick / household of a sick person to stay in a hotel room – until they have gone 14 days without symptoms.
The thing is; if New York just goes like this; something like your proposal maybe the only viable option for the rest of the country.
If NYC can’t survive without the subway and it can’t survive with it, then it can’t survive.
A simpler plan: Mask wearing mandatory everywhere in NY City outside of personal residence. Also mandatory for all transit going into and out of city. Temperature checked on all people to get on transit and into grocery stores and workplaces.
New York can survive without its subways — but can elected officials survive a decision to do so?
De Blasio was reluctant and late to shut down schools for a reason.
Make mask wearing obligatory in subways. Japan has much denser population and public transport use and did not have near the outbreak NYC has had.
Some people might be happy shutting down NYC indefinitely, but considering how much success we’ve had with other Coronavirus vaccines, I don’t think killing the city to save it is a good outcome.
Targeted testing makes much more sense than a MOAB which is what we’ve been doing so far. Identify at risk, test them, quarantine them, etc. Done to every other outbreak of infections diseases in this country recently. What is this one different?
“New York can survive without its subways — but can elected officials survive a decision to do so?”
Which also explains why liquor stores were declared essential.
Give it time. Tomorrow Japan will have more cases and more deaths than South Korea, well on its way to a serious outbreak.
Seoul’s population is about the same as Tokyo, maybe slightly larger. Its population density would make it the 4th most dense area in NYC. That is much more dense than Tokyo. (17,000 vs 6000/km2) Surprised me.
Steve
For fairness; New York is not alone in not going “all-inâ€. In fact; very few hard hit cities have gone all-in.
As far as I know; no city other then Wuhan stopped mass transit.
Besides China, Korea, Italy, Australia — no has stopped has domestic travel from an outbreak.
Besides China, Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, no one has implemented centralized or out of home quarantine.
That made me go look up Wuhan. Population of 11 million, more than Tokyo or Seoul but not super dense. Would rank about number 100 in the US among Metropolitan areas.
Steve
The difference is that New York’s major city newspaper is chiding the rest of us for not going “all in” on NYC’s behalf while NYC won’t go “all in” on its own behalf.
Dave, obviously they believe that their economy is much more important than our economy. And you’re a bigot if you disagree. Now lock yourself in and be happy about it, or the Chinese-made drones donated to LEOs will report you.
FDR for all that I think he did wrong was right about his comment regarding fear. Too many politicians have let fear (especially the fear of not being reelected for not doing what the taking heads say is the ‘right’ thing) rule their responses to the epidemic.