[lsllc]

Not sure it's that simple. Massachusetts has a population of 6.7M and 7152 deaths (average age 82) with a lockdown.

Sweden has a pop. of 10M with 3K deaths.

Florida has a pop. of 20M with 2566 deaths and not much of a lockdown.

It seems to me that the death rate is a function of how well protected the elderly are and in particular if C19 has gotten into long term care homes as it has in MA (62% of MA C19 deaths in long term care homes) and I think Sweden, but Florida locked down its LTC homes at the beginning of March.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2020/05/26/nursin...

[adventured]

Texas is an even more dramatic example.

29 million people with only 1,734 deaths, and 4 of the 11 largest US cities.

If you scale Norway to Texas on population, you would get 1,000 deaths.

If you scale Finland to Texas, you would get 1,700 deaths.

Texas did as well as Finland with five times the population, with barely any lockdown.

It's the climate. The same reason Greece did so well. The same reason Rome didn't get hit like Milan (when it should have been hit far worse).

It's why all of San Diego County only has 283 deaths with a population of 3.3 million.

And it's why formerly hard hit locations are starting to open up: their temperatures have climbed enough to slow the virus. NYC will be fully open this Summer and yet the virus won't be ravaging the city like it previously did, and this is why.

The Italian doctor - Alberto Zangrillo - that recently made headlines by saying the virus was fading in potency? That's the higher temperatures reducing the potential of the virus to transmit, it's reducing the viral loads they're seeing. We already knew to expect this, that's why numerous experts were predicting the virus would fade as the seasons changed and temps climbed.

[lsllc]

There are clearly other variables related to the _spread_ of C19 (for example public transport -- Texas and California don't have much, whereas it's widely used in Boston, NYC and many European cities).

I'm not sure I buy into the climate aspect (Brazil?) ... as for the "fading potency" theory? Maybe. But could it be that as it spreads asymptomatically through the healthy, younger population we're seeing the beginnings of some sort of herd immunity? "They" say we need 60-80% which we're not seeing yet, but clearly it's not going to be a "binary" thing where the spread suddenly stops when we get to 80%.

I think if you separate the spread of SARS-Cov2 from the severe/fatal cases of the C19 disease, what's emerging is that it's the elderly and "infirm" that are dying, but not the remainder of the population (aside from those with health issues). Perhaps the death rate correlates to 1) how much SARS-Cov2 has spread asymptomatically within the healthy population and 2) how much of that asymptomatic but healthy population have _interacted_ with elderly people / long term care homes (thus introducing SARS-Cov2 which is devastating to them).

[perl4ever]

Texas and California are now at the top with way more new cases than NY.

Internationally, Brazil is outstripping the US in new cases, and India, Russia, Pakistan, and many others are ahead of the western European countries people are still discussing.

The character of the epidemic has changed rapidly and people don't seem to be paying attention.

[perl4ever]

You really shouldn't be using Texas as an example, because Texas is a prime example of how the bulk of the new cases are shifting to states and countries that didn't originally rank at the top.

People are having discussions and making pronouncements as though the epidemic is over, or at least no longer rapidly evolving and can be judged in retrospect.

States that had more new cases the other day than NY or NJ:

California, Texas, North Carolina, Illinois, Arizona...

There are about fifty countries with more new cases recently than Italy. Do you think those countries are all really cold or something?

[Jommi]

Right, and that's why LA with its 30+ degrees Celsius, right next to San Diego, is stil growing in the amount of cases per day.

[Johnjonjoan]

How do you explain Mexico and Brazil in that case?

The much lower viral loads in Italy could be a result of other things such as widespread mask usage.

I think you could well be on to something. But there are still too many questions to be certain that heat is slowing transmission.

[stevoo]

It is not as clear cut as this. Massachusetts has a population of 6.7M and 7152 deaths. Sweden has a pop. of 10M with 3K deaths.

Massachusetts is approximately 20,306 sq km, while Sweden is approximately 450,295 sq km, making Sweden 2,118% larger than Massachusetts.

So the 10M residents of Sweden are much more spread than in MA. Also MA was late in how they have dealt with Covid and the number of cases was progressing much faster.

[nradov]

It's not that simple. Population density numbers don't tell us anything useful at the national level. Most Swedes are clustered into a few urban areas.

[anthonypasq]

ok then look at the stats in Stockholm

[kwhitefoot]

> the 10M residents of Sweden are much more spread than in MA.

Probably not. Swedes are a fairly urban people, many living in blocks of flats in cities.

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Stockholm:

    Population (31 December 2019)[3][4][5]
     • Capital city 975,904
     • Density 5,200/km2 (13,000/sq mi)
     • Urban[6] 1,605,030
     • Urban density 4,200/km2 (11,000/sq mi)
     • Metro 2,377,081
     • Metro density 360/km2 (940/sq mi)

And here is Boston:

    Population (2019)[2][3][4][5][6]
     • City 692,600
     • Density 14,344/sq mi (5,538/km2)
     • Urban 4,180,000 (US: 10th)
     • Metro 4,628,910 (US: 10th)[1]

So Sweden might be twenty times the size but the urban population density is not so wildly different.