Posted on 03/20/2020 3:58:43 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The United States will be hit hard by the coronavirus. But it has a secret weapon that could lessen the health impact: the way we live.
Coronavirus is so hard to stop because it is so easy to spread. As with other viruses similar to the flu, the coronavirus travels easily through the air or via human contact. That’s why public health experts are pushing social distancing. The fewer people we come into contact with, the less likely we are to contract or spread the virus.
The United States, however, already practices a form of social distancing in its daily life through suburban living. For decades, Americans have been criticized for their detached, single-family houses and their solo car commuting, but these factors may also mean that Americans are less likely to be in close quarters with strangers during their daily lives than are residents of most other developed countries. That alone means we have a form of protection many Italians or Chinese didn’t.
The data are crystal clear on this. China’s population density is 397 people per square mile. Italy’s is 532 people per square mile, and South Korea’s is 1,366. The United States, by contrast, has only 94 people per square mile. That’s got to be a fact in our favor.
We also come into contact with fewer people when we commute. According to the 2017 American Community Survey, more than 80 percent of Americans either work from home or commute alone by car. In Beijing and X’ian, on the other hand, only 30 percent of commuters travel by car. Italians similarly use public transit much more frequently than do most Americans. A paper from the Brookings Institution says that the average resident of Milan, the epicenter of Italy’s coronavirus outbreak, takes 350 trips a year on
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Oregon 42 people per square mile
Have you been in a grocery store lately? I live in a small town in a rural area. It has four grocery stores—all of which are packed with jackasses pulling everything they can grab off the shelves and piling shopping carts to overflowing. No social distancing going on there, people practically cheek by jowl, standing in long crowded lines at checkout. In Pennsylvania the governor has ordered a shut down of all but life-sustaining businesses and told people to stay home.
So, I have to stay home from work along with everyone else but now, people who aren’t working are jamming the grocery stores. It is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. I was safer at work.
Wow, that's amazing. Thanks.
Yet, isn’t it the Left that wants to crowd us all on trains and into big cities?????
Flaring on the oil rigs?
Well it had damned well better get a move on, or the thing will be over before the fun can begin.
Actually went to Aldi today to pick up a few tings...I'm in western Kentucky. As far as I know there have been no confirmed cases. At the Aldi no meat, no tp no cleaning products but other than that things normal. Kept our distance, wore gloves. Plenty of stores and they're always packed no matter what time of the day.
I'm losing my patience with that sort.
Same in my area. Just when the stores seem to begin to catch up another doom and gloom report comes out and everyone runs out to by another weeks worth of food. I spoke with a manager yesterday and they said it’s not the supplies are limited for the most part with the excepting of sanitizer wipes and the like, it’s the sheer volume people are panic buying.
They had a 3/4 mile long backup of trucks trying to enter one DC a coupe days ago. Some depts that normally would need 150 cases each delivery were generating orders in excess of 1000 cases but the DC was cutting items to try to triage it. Even then deliveries were running 36-48 hours late.
I can see I-75 from my window, and it’s normally busy, busy, busy — sometimes at a standstill it’s so packed. It’s been pretty sparse for a week when it comes to cars, but the amount of trucks has increased a lot.
My rural power company offers cable, phone and internet.
200 mbps for $50, and a gig for $80.00. No data limits. Cable $75 and up for different packages.
Probably the amount of trucks has not increased but the relative ratio has.
“Probably the amount of trucks has not increased but the relative ratio has.”
Maybe. I think I’ll wander down there one day and hijack the Little Debbie truck.
(BTW - how are you feeling?)
I’m feeling good, but the mention of Little Debbies has increased my blood sugar.
Oh, right. Sorry I mentioned it. :(
Many deaths are in Nursing Homes due to the incompetnce of State public Health officials
Start with the governor and his health appointees in Washington. Would you want them running your single payer health system?
Single point of failure - avoid them. The iis the #1 lesson so far. Avoid single points of failure in Public Health. Avoid single points of failure in the sourcing of medicine and medical equipment, especially is China is that single soure.
This lesson could be applied to other areas of society. Decentralize. This is not ideology. It is common sense based on real events.
See that black dot in Southern NJ? That’s the Pine Barrens, and I’m right in the middle of it. We have 3 recorded cases in Atlantic County, all with connections to NYC.
3.7-805 for my county, I’m really rural.
Yes, this is true. Plus the “personal space” we maintain between ourselves and others is the greatest distance of any cuture, along with northern Europe.
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