
The Subways Seeded the Coronavirus Epidemic in New York City - say_it_as_it_is
https://www.nber.org/papers/w27021
======
exegete
There was a lot of cognitive dissonance going on at the beginning of March.
The mayor actually took a special ride on the subway to reassure the public
and said something to the effect that you were unlikely to contract it on the
subway since the CDC said it generally spread when you were exposed to someone
infected within 6 feet for 15 minutes. It was clear to everyone that is
exactly how people ride the subway except for the mayor who never rides it.
I’m lucky that I can WFH as needed and when the first positive case came to
NYC decided to WFH and see how things went and obviously haven’t been to the
office since. I don’t think shutting it down would have been possible but just
encouraging people to work from home earlier would have helped reduce
ridership.

------
fiftyfifty
NY was in a terrible place, they should have shutdown the subways immediately
when they started getting cases there, but it would have crippled the city.

~~~
olliej
For most people in NY that would have effectively been quarantine already -
ignoring entirely that many essential workers in NY have to use the subway
even now.

The general theme is everyone should have shut down earlier, and not let
people say “the economy!”.

------
jey
What does “reciprocal seeding of infection“ mean?

~~~
jhayward
I'm not sure but I interpreted it as indicating that the appearance of the
outbreak centering at the transit hubs was the result of 'seed' infections
traveling from outlying sources 'in' toward the transit hub.

------
biomcgary
A friend pointed out that specific genetic variants in the immune system are
prevalent in northeastern Italy and are likely to substantially increase
susceptibility to the virus. New York's large Italian population is part of
the problem. Same thing in South Florida.

~~~
jaldhar
I find most Italian-Americans around here (NY/NJ) claim to be Sicilian or
Neapolitan etc. That’s quite genetically distinct no?

~~~
ta1771
Are native Americans and Canadians along the border genetically distinct? Same
question, really.

~~~
jaldhar
Well after I wrote that I did some reading and it seems that Northern Italians
have more Germanic (e.g. Lombard) ancestry while farther South you get Greek
and even some Arab. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the reunification of
Italy in the 19th century there was little movement or intermarriage between
regions hence less gene flow.

I would expect American natives as tribal societies to be even more distinct
though not likely along current borders.

------
robomartin
I tracked the situation in NY closely because we have family in the region
(from NYC to Boston). While I was screaming at our local school district in
Los Angeles to shut down the schools, in NY (city and state) they did the
unthinkable.

Here are some of the notes I took. Look at the dates. Look at what they are
saying. Look at who's saying it. then think about the consequences of what
they told millions of people to do.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMkBW9ewPz8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMkBW9ewPz8)

    
    
        30JAN20
        Dr. Oxiris Barbot, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health
          • The local risk is LOW
          • Our preparedness is HIGH
          • Go about your lives
          • No indication to be using masks
          • We have measures
          • We have screening
          • No indication that going through the subway is a risk factor
          • No indications to be using masks
          • False sense of security
          • The risk is low
    
    

[https://youtu.be/xXh7jUxfdak?t=2226](https://youtu.be/xXh7jUxfdak?t=2226)

    
    
        09MAR20
        De Blazio
        Dr. Oxiris Barbot, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health
    
    

I'll repeat that. The woman speaking in the video above is the DOCTOR Oxiris
Barbot, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health. She is the
"Head Doctor" for the entire city of NY.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEhLOp7UGNM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEhLOp7UGNM)

    
    
        02MAR20
        Andrew Cuomo, NY Governor
        Bill De Blasio, NYC Mayor
        Ken Raske, President of Greater New York Hospital Association
        
        First case in NY
          • Just like the normal flu
          • We should relax
          • We don't think it's going to be as bad as it is in other places
          • We have been ahead of this from day one
          • Go about your lives
          • Go about your business
          • There has to be prolonged exposure
          • Just wash your hands
          • There is no need to do anything special anything in the community,
            we want New Yorkers to go about their daily lives, ride the subway,
            ride the bus, go see your neighbors
          • We have the equipment
          • It's not like we are dealing with something we haven't dealt with before
          • We have the ability to address this
          • We have the capacity to keep this contained
          • Like the normal flu
    
    

Not sure why she still has a job, not to mention the others featured in these
and other idiotic press conferences and media declarations. In NY in
particular, government officials effectively told everyone to go out there and
get infected. Keep in mind that if you overlay the infection and death
timeline from Italy onto the NY timeline it is truly incomprehensible that
these officials would tell people to go out, gather and move about a city as
New York.

If you look at the graphs for the entire US the rate of change of infection
and death in NY is massively larger than anywhere else and it is, in my
opinion, very directly linked to these and other statements made by officials.

I have lots more links, covering the entire January-March timeline. Both media
and politicians jumped on the "nothing to see here" bandwagon in a big way
after Trump shutdown travel from China (January 31). New York City, in
particular, has a very high density and high usage of mass transportation.
They should have reacted very quickly to mitigate transmission. Instead they
encouraged everyone to get out there as normal and effectively killed
thousands of people as a result. Again, not sure why this woman still has a
job.

~~~
redis_mlc
What's interesting is that the information the NY officials conveyed may not
have been accurate for NY, but fairly accurately described SF Bay Area.

Though it looks like SF Bay Area started to get corona in December from
connections in China, and it spread quietly through the population.

Calif. had too many ventilators, so donated 500 to other cities.

SF also has a busy subway system, no mention of NY-style issues here though.

~~~
service_bus
NY subway averages almost 2 billion riders annually.

SF averages 50 million.

If SF had a subway system that handled 40x the amount of people you could
start to draw some comparisons.

