New York accounts for about two-fifths of American cases and deaths. At this point, the numbers of New York look comparable to what we've seen in the worst-hit European countries (Italy, Spain), while the numbers in other states look like less affected countries.
It's possible that New York is just "further along" on what will ultimately be very similar trajectories in other states, but there's also still hope that that will not be the case. Most of the earliest cases were coming from California and Washington, but they just haven't taken off like New York did.
So yeah, I would be very hesitant to reach grand political conclusions based on what we've seen so far.
South Korea is a case in point. They've been widely regarded as having the best/one of the best responses to an outbreak of the virus, and their numbers are looked at as a sort of best case scenario by a lot of countries. But what a lot of people ignore is that a huge percentage of the initial outbreak could be traced back to a specific religious group (something like three-fifths of the 3,500 cases), with the patient zero there being identified. That's a vastly different circumstance than a bunch of unidentified, asymptomatic people riding back and forth on subways, going to theaters, shopping, etc. I don't disagree that South Korea did a great job, but that's the kind of random luck that you just can't account for.Darth Wedgius wrote: ↑Mon Mar 30, 2020 9:01 pm Yes, but my point was that spreading involves a lot of random factors as well, does it not?
