{"id":206713,"date":"2021-03-20T00:18:26","date_gmt":"2021-03-19T21:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/why-are-manhattans-covid-rates-so-low-compared-with-the-rest-of-nyc\/"},"modified":"2021-03-20T00:18:26","modified_gmt":"2021-03-19T21:18:26","slug":"why-are-manhattans-covid-rates-so-low-compared-with-the-rest-of-nyc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-are-manhattans-covid-rates-so-low-compared-with-the-rest-of-nyc\/","title":{"rendered":"#Why are Manhattan’s COVID rates so low compared with the rest of NYC?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Why are Manhattan’s COVID rates so low compared with the rest of NYC?<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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Manhattan has a much lower COVID-19 infection rate than the four other boroughs. It also has many fewer hospitalizations and deaths. Yet the \u201cexperts\u201d are astonishingly incurious as to why.<\/p>\n

They tend to mention it only in passing, if at all. Why such scant attention to so tantalizing a phenomenon?<\/p>\n

Manhattan doesn\u2019t lie hundreds of miles offshore. It\u2019s linked to the rest of the city by a half-dozen bridges, three tunnels and myriad train lines. Surely we ought to care why one borough is safer than the others, even as millions of people pass from one to another every day.<\/p>\n

Despite The New York Times\u2019 daily warnings of an severe COVID \u201cbreakout\u201d in the city, many who live in Manhattan \u2014 myself included \u2014 reasonably regard the island as a COVID-safe oasis. We confidently roam its parks, stores and museums. We fill restaurants indoors as well as outdoors. (Yes, we wear masks.)<\/p>\n

Common-sense reasons for our relative safety might include higher income levels and better overall health than in the outer boroughs; fewer virus-spreading nursing homes than in Brooklyn, The Bronx and Queens; and Manhattan\u2019s scarcity of Orthodox Jewish community \u201chot zones.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"People
People wait for a COVID-19 test at 212 East 23rd Street in Manhattan. <\/figcaption>
Robert Miller<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But we need to know more than what \u201ccommon sense\u201d tells us. We need a serious, scientific study to quantify exactly what accounts for the disparity.<\/p>\n

So why does it go largely unexamined? Perhaps because drawing attention to it would make nonsense of the like-minded COVID clerisy\u2019s articles of faith. Chief among them, often cited by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and health professionals, is that \u201curban density\u201d is a main driver of virus spread.<\/p>\n

But shock!\u00a0Manhattan is by far the most densely populated borough, with over 71,000 residents per square mile compared with 36,000 in Brooklyn, the second-most dense.<\/p>\n

Yes, Manhattan lost some residents after the virus struck, but the mostly temporary relocations occurred in a few rich corners of the Upper East Side and Tribeca, and its overall density probably didn\u2019t change drastically.<\/p>\n

Notwithstanding our substantial numbers, Manhattan\u2019s current new-infection rate is in the mere 2-plus percent range; it\u2019s above 4 percent in The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, per state data. Manhattan\u2019s hospitalizations and deaths are far fewer than in the outer boroughs, too, city data show.<\/p>\n

\"COVID-19
COVID-19 testing on the Amtrak level inside Penn Station.<\/figcaption>
Robert Miller<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The state and city crank out different sets of numbers, yet both show Manhattan\u2019s superior condition. For example, the state on Wednesday put Manhattan\u2019s positivity rate at 2.87 percent, versus 4.4 percent in Brooklyn and nearly 5 percent in the three other boroughs. According to city data, Manhattan\u2019s average of seven deaths per day was about half the toll in other boroughs except for Staten Island, the least populous, which had only two.<\/p>\n

The gap shows up for hospitalizations, too.\u00a0A ZIP code map of infections depicts most of Manhattan as a sea of light pink (for the fewest cases) surrounded by burgundy and near-black blotches elsewhere.<\/p>\n

So much for \u201cdensity\u201d posing a threat to us all.<\/p>\n

A related myth is the supposed menace of indoor dining. Manhattan clearly has more and larger restaurants than the other boroughs. Even so, the gap between borough infections remained in Manhattan\u2019s favor throughout last fall\u2019s 10-week period when city indoor dining was allowed at 25 percent capacity. And it has maintained its advantage since Cuomo allowed restaurants to open indoors with limited seating on Feb. 12.<\/p>\n

If eating indoors could spread the virus as easily as some claim, wouldn\u2019t Manhattan\u2019s infection rate, hospitalizations and deaths swiftly have caught up with those in the outer boroughs?<\/p>\n

A focus on borough-by-borough COVID cases would also shine a harsh light on a political hot potato that Mayor Bill de Blasio and Cuomo prefer to mostly ignore: large, often mask-less ultra-Orthodox gatherings including weddings, holiday celebrations and funerals. Although the mayor and governor condemned them, the only true deterrent \u2014 police crackdowns \u2014 is rarely app<\/a>lied.<\/p>\n

Manhattan has none of the huge Hasidic congregations found in Brooklyn and Queens. A proper study of the extent to which they contribute to virus spread might well show an even greater impact on neighboring communities than government officials who fear losing votes are willing to acknowledge.<\/p>\n

\"Hundreds
Hundreds of mourners gather in the Brooklyn borough of New York, to observe a funeral for Rabbi Chaim Mertz in April 2020.<\/figcaption>
Peter Gerber via AP, File<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Vaccines are wonderful, but until many more New Yorkers are inoculated, we need every bit of knowledge we can muster to beat the bug. We\u2019ll learn nothing by ignoring the lessons of Manhattan, wherever the trail leads.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Why are Manhattan’s COVID rates so low compared with the rest of NYC?” Manhattan has a much lower COVID-19 infection rate than the four other boroughs. It also has many fewer hospitalizations and deaths. Yet the \u201cexperts\u201d are astonishingly incurious as to why. They tend to mention it only in passing, if at all. Why…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":206714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/08\/nyc-2.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[98436,1545,78955,22512],"class_list":["post-206713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-3-19-21","tag-coronavirus","tag-population","tag-restaurants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}