[nilkn]

New York waited for things to be bad before they shut down. San Francisco shut down incredibly early in comparison at a time when the city was essentially perfectly fine and largely unaffected. This led to an extraordinary difference in outcomes.

The interior of the country doesn’t have the infrastructure to support exponential growth. Nurses and doctors and hospitals being idle is a sign that we chose the SF path, not the NY path.

The economic impact is of course absolutely terrible and this is shaping up to potentially be as bad as the Great Depression was. But letting the virus ravage small towns and cities without adequate support would be worse both economically and in terms of loss of life.

[dredmorbius]

SF also lacks the density, and more critically the scale of NYC. Though credit to Mayor London Breed and Gov. Newsom for early and effective action.

Regions hardest hit by COVID-19 seem (informal take) to have largely been large, dense, sprawling cities. with poor public health infrastructure or responses.

In the US, it's currently mostly Northeast cities, generally surrounding New York, doing the worst. Wuhan (11 million) is also huge. Milan (Italy), Madrid (Spain), Tehran (Iran), London (UK) have also fared poorly, especially relative to their countries.

Outbreaks in less populated regions can and do occur. -- though often within institutional populations or equivalents -- cruise ships, retirement / nursing homes, prisons and jails, as well as anti-science religious groups, notably.

And not all megacities have been hit, especially those with solid monitoring systems, response plans, and infrastructure: Hong Kong, Seoul, Taipei, Singapore, especially.

But this is a pattern to watch going forward.

Developing nation megacities seem at high risk.