Do you believe this?

[harbormaster]

https://www.studyfinds.org/surprising-study-urban-density-doesnt-cause-more-covid-19-infections-even-promotes-lower-death-rates/

[duenor]

https://www.studyfinds.org/surprisin...r-death-rates/

This seems more like social engineering then reality. NY was hit the hardest and doesn’t have the highest density?

Nope, sounds plausible to me. The study’s authors speculate this is because denser, urban areas often offer better healthcare services. Instead, higher coronavirus infection and death rates seem to be linked to a metropolitan area’s size, not its density. Ergo, this is why Tokyo, which is one of the most densely populated places in the world, probably has a very low death rate per capita when compared to say, Nagoya or Osaka.

But I suspect this observation only holds as long as you are looking at first world dense areas. The slums in Bangladesh are probably having deaths left and right (we don't hear about it because testing is crap there and the media doesn't believe there is much interest in hearing about poor bangladeshis dying).

This is also why COVID19 has been absolutely devastating to Native American tribes. widespread poverty, lack of care, very large spaces - natives americans get sick and can't even get to a clinic because there's nothing nearby.

[TrappedinCalifornia]

You can massage data to 'support' whatever conclusion you want.

In the end, I can say I'm extremely dubious given that it was published in the Journal of the American Planning Association. Something like 30 years ago, I had an exchange with an up and coming 'planner.' He was proposing that "the future" was where no American would have to travel more than 2 or 3 miles from their home in their entire life. All their shopping, entertainment, etc. would be within that radius and that was, ultimately, the goal of "urban planners."

I asked about those of us who didn't feel that a 'quality' environment included being able to hear your neighbor's toilet flush. He said that people like that would have to be "re-educated" to accept the new reality. I asked what would happen to those who would or could not be so educated. He followed, with emphasis, that laws would have to be passed against people like that; i.e., those who would or could not accept the new reality.

Sound familiar? Given that this 'study' seems to support that kind of agenda, I question it. From your article...

“These findings suggest that urban planners should continue to practice and advocate for compact places rather than sprawling ones, due to the myriad well-established benefits of the former, including health benefits,” says study lead author Shima Hamidi in a release. PhD. Hamidi is an assistant professor of American Health in Environmental Challenges in the university’s Department of Environmental Health and Engineering.

That's particularly true given that many of the rural counties have yet to experience anything like the urban counties in terms of the severity of COVID-19 and, in some cases, what incidents those rural counties have had were the result of either residents going to the cities and coming back or residents from the cities desiring 'a night out' or similar in the more 'open' counties.

So... When you suggest the possibility of 'social engineering,' you aren't wrong to be suspicious.

[as_rocketman]

This seems more like social engineering then reality. NY was hit the hardest and doesn’t have the highest density?

This is the kind of thing that happens when you start data mining and losing sight of the overall picture. I don't dispute their numerical conclusion, but I would describe their conclusion as limited in perspective. Yes, I am a data scientist, for what little that's worth.

You shouldn't take that conclusion too far. For instance, if you took a reference urban population and increased their packing fraction, but held all other things constant, you should see an increase in infections, and might see an increase in death rates too. Therefore, urban density increase == good is false. Obviously, that hypothetical situation is impossible to set up, but you get the idea.

Where the paper falls short is in figuring out what about the denser urban environment is causing the difference, since there are no completely equivalent populations. Is it, as others have speculated, greater and quicker access to health care? Is it because of increased social contact? Or does it have more to do with the types of work or leisure activities found there?

How do you account for differences in populations? What is it about cities that attracts certain groups? Is there something in their background that predisposes them to certain behaviors, certain genetic factors, or medical histories? None of that is being probed here.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the results so far have to do with the epidemic so far. Despite flawed serology studies claiming otherwise, thus far the virus has followed a particular pattern due to a high degree of virulence but relatively sparse individual carriers. As we start moving into a more widespread phase, the calculus could very well be different.

Personal opinions, if you want to avoid contracting the disease, your best success factors include access to health care but also a high probability of teleworking and ability to supply yourself with minimal outside contact. You can set that up in cities, but you could also set that up in a rural community. I have a veritable fortress of suburbia thing going on right now, but I would feel equally secure going totally off the grid.