Supertramp – "Take the Long Way Home" (1979)

You took the long way home

You took the long way home

You took the long way home

(If you think Supertramp took the long way home, just wait until you read this 2 or 3 lines and the one that follows it.)

*     *     *     *     *

I’ve violated the First Law of Holes – “If you find yourself in a hole, you need to stop digging” – many times in my life.

2 or 3 lines has fallen into this trap more than once.  When I start reading a book or watching a TV series, I will nearly always keep going until I finish it – no matter how much of a struggle it is.

I do the same thing when I decide to write about something on this blog.  Even if what seemed like a good idea for a post turns out to be not such a good idea, I find myself compelled to keep digging until I find something I can publish.  

But most of the time, I have to dig really deep to find that something – which is rarely is worth all the digging.

So I’m giving you fair warning.  That’s what happened with this post, and with the one that follows.  (When I spend so much time on a post like this one, I try to get my money’s worth by dividing it into two posts.)

I should have just stopped and deleted the damn thing after the first 10,000 words.  But once I invest that much time and effort in a post, I am loath to admit defeat.  So I just kept going, and kept going, and kept going . . . 

You may decide not to stick with me until the end.  But if you do, never fear: I may be taking the long way home, but I promise you that we’ll get there eventually.

Whether the destination is worth the journey is another matter altogether

*     *     *     *     *

New York City is clearly the hottest of the COVID-19 hot spots.  

As of April 25, the coronavirus had caused 11,419 deaths in New York City.  That’s 135.2 deaths per 100,000 residents.  (Many believe that count understates the true number by several thousand, but let’s stick with the official number for the time being.) 

Things aren’t nearly as bad in the San Francisco Bay area – where the first coronavirus death in the United States occured.

San Francisco has just over one-tenth as many residents as New York City – 883,000 compared to 8,400,000.  So you might expect San Francisco to have about one-tenth as many COVID-19 deaths at New York City – something in the range of 1150 deaths.

But San Francisco has had only 22 COVID-19 deaths to date – or 2.5 deaths per 100,000 residents.

In other words, a New York City resident is OVER 50 TIMES more likely to die from coronavirus than a San Francisco resident.

There are a lot of different theories about why New York City has had so many more deaths than San Francisco.  Let’s discuss a few of the more popular ones.

*     *     *     *     *

The most popular explanation for why New York City has had more COVID-19 deaths by far than San Francisco or other cities is that it is the most very densely populated big city in the United States, with 27,000 souls per square mile.  It also has a notoriously crowded subway system that most New Yorkers use to get to work.  The coronavirus thrives on close contact between humans, and you simply can’t live in the Big Apple and avoid such contact.

But San Francisco is also a very crowded city.  In fact, it’s the second-most densely populated city in the U.S., with over 19,000 residents per square mile.  

So New York City has one and a half times as many people per square mile as San Francisco – a significant difference – but its COVID-19 death rate is over 50 times greater.

And while New Yorkers have the highest rate of public transit usage in the country, a lot of San Franciscans use mass transit as well.

If New York City’s COVID-19 death rate was twice as high, three times as high, or five times as high as San Francisco’s, it wouldn’t be a stretch to explain that by pointing to New York City’s greater population density and more popular mass-transit system.

But New York City has a COVID-19 death rate that is over 50 times greater.

*     *     *     *     *

A lot of people think that demographic differences between the two cities may explain the death rate discrepancies.

It’s true that New York City has more African-American and Hispanic residents than San Francisco, and that African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely to die from the coronavirus than whites or Asians.  (San Francisco is only slightly whiter than New York City, but it does have quite a few more Asian-Americans.)

San Francisco is only slightly whiter than New York City, but a much larger percentage of its population is Asian (34% to 14%) – and Asian-Americans seem to die less frequently from COVID-19.

New York City’s population is 22% African-American and 29% Hispanic.  Of the New Yorkers who have died from COVID-19, 28% were black and 34% were Hispanic.  

That’s disproportionately high compared to the overall population numbers, but the differences aren’t that dramatic – they certainly wouldn’t suggest a 50-times-greater death rate.  

*     *     *     *     *

And other demographic differences cut the other way.

For example, young people are far less likely than seniors to succumb to COVID-19.  (Only 1% of coronavirus victims were 24 or younger, while almost 80% were 65 or older.)

San Francisco’s high-tech industry attracts young people like sh*t attracts flies, but New York City’s population is actually younger than San Francisco’s.

For example, a slightly higher percentage of San Franciscans are over 65 – 15.1% compared to 14.1% of New York City’s residents.  More significantly, New York City has a considerably higher proportion of children – 27.4% of New Yorkers are 18 and under, while only 17.9% of San Franciscans are that young.  

Also, about 60 percent of the people who die from coronavirus are men.  (At least that’s what’s happening in New York City.  Believe it or not, the CDC doesn’t have death figures broken down by gender.)  San Francisco has a slightly higher percentage of male residents than New York City (51% to 48%), which would tend to skew the COVID-19 death rate slightly higher in San Francisco.

In other words, some of the demographic differences between the two cities seem to favor San Francisco, while others favor New York City.  There’s nothing there that explains a death rate that’s 50 times greater.

*     *     *     *     *

Governor Cuomo of New York – who has to be feeling some heat over the fact that his state has by far the worst coronavirus situation in the country – came up with another theory recently.  He says it’s the Italians’ fault:

Last November, December, we knew that China had a virus outbreak.  You could read about it in the newspapers, right?  Everybody knew.  January 26, we know we had the first confirmed case in Seattle, Washington, and California. February 2nd, the president ordered a travel ban from China. March 1st we have the first confirmed case in the state of New York. . . .

March 16th, [President Trump issues] a full travel ban from Europe.  Researchers now find and they report in some newspapers, the virus was spreading wildly in Italy in February and there was an outbreak, massive outbreak in Italy in February. . . . [T]he coronavirus flu virus that came to New York, did not come from China. It came from Europe. . . .

A researcher now says knowing the number of flights coming into New York from Italy, it was like watching a horrible train wreck in slow motion.  Those are the flights that were coming from Italy and from Europe, January and February.  We closed the front door with the China travel ban, which was right.  Even in retrospect, it was right, but we left the back door open because the virus had left China by the time we did the China travel ban. 

That’s an interesting theory, but I haven’t been able to find much evidence in support of it.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo

Not surprisingly, there is a lot more air traffic between Italy and New York City than there is between Italy and San Francisco.  So to the extent travelers from Italy carried the disease to the United States, New York City would have received a lot more of them than San Francisco.

But there are a lot more visitors from China to this country than there are visitors from Italy.  And it appears that more of those visitors flew to San Francisco than to New York City.

It’s possible that Cuomo is correct, but I don’t think he’s come anywhere near proving that Italian travelers for New York City’s much greater COVID-19 death rate.

*     *     *     *     *

The final theory about why New Yorkers are 50 times more likely to die from the coronavirus than San Franciscans is that San Francisco and its neighboring jurisdictions ordered residents to “shelter in place” before New York City.

Residents of the San Francisco Bay area were directed to shelter in place on March 16.  The governor of California followed that up with a statewide order on March 19.

The next day, the New York governor issued a similar stay-at-home order that had an effective date of March 22.

So San Francisco (and its suburbs) only shut things down a few days before New York City did.  Could that short delay be sufficient to explain New York City’s 50-times-greater COVID-19 death rate?

*     *     *     *     *

I think I’ve dug a big enough hole for one day.  

But never fear.  I promise that I’ll pick up my shovel in the next 2 or 3 lines and keep digging until I answer that question.

Click here to listen to today’s featured song, which was released on Supertramp’s sixth studio album, Breakfast in America, in 1979.

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: