Right on it, babe! From an old Federal Lobbyist! Told you so!

Excellent point! Haha!

"It was planned ... l to be an ecological haven for the wealthy."
Not true. The city plan had abundant housing for less than wealthy people and areas at higher pricing. However your point about Woodlands having restricted zoning is true, and much higher taxation than other nearby areas to support additional services and arguably better facilities.

It is easy to see that NYC has far more cases of Covid-19 than its population alone would predict, or, more truly, Texas cities have far fewer. One consideration is the exponential growth of an epidemic: twice the population, forty times the infections. But the major premise is easy to support: the physical demography of the City is the aggravating agency.

New York City Population 18 million
(Metro area 21 million)
Covid-109 cases 40,900 (31 March)

Houston area:
1,266 cases
12 dead
168 recovered
(31 March Fox News 26)

Population 7 million
2020 Estimate 2.4 million for the city proper
The City of Houston does not have zoning but development is governed by codes that address how property can be subdivided. The City codes do not address land use.-- Oct 1, 2018
Planning and Development - City of Houston
https://www.houstontx.gov/planning/De...

Corona Virus Cases Metropolitan Dallas-Ft. Worth
Total Population 7.5 million
Dallas Dallas - 549
North Suburbs Collin - 160
Northwest Suburbs Denton County 191
Fort Worth Tarrant County - 161
Dallas Metro total case: 1061 (31 March)

That all being as it may, a better comparison would be a metropolis of 20 million that does not have zoning laws, if one could be found. Alternately, it would have to be demonstrated that the virus originated in Wuhan (versus Beijing or Shanghai or Hong Kong) because of Wuhan's zoning laws. In fact, the Houston suburb of The Woodlands has strict zoning laws. It was planned by fracking entrepreneur George P. Mitchell to be an ecological haven for the wealthy. It is not so much how many laws you have, but what kind.

He who has the most early confirmed cases gets the most at the federal trough. Snuffle, snuffle, oink, oink.

Interesting thesis, and no doubt part of the story. But the more direct correlation that is completely left out of this analysis is the testing.

As of a couple days ago, NYC represented 30% of all testing done in the U.S. Surprise!

And the intellectual lemmings continue on at breakneck speed for the cliff.....

Well, what a dunce I am. That was February 8, not March 8, but apparently I can't edit the post. *I would have explained the edit.

anyway, that was the first Mardi Gras parade and I was so glad not to be there!

But like, drunk, you know, teenagers are, like, such, uh, great, you know, like, convertionalists, like, you know.

Sorry, I forgot the 2019-2020 influenza estimates:

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/...

The data for covid-19 will be better than that for influenza because it will be required reporting to the CDC. Since covid-19 appears at the present time to be as infectious as influenza and possibly cause more deaths per individuals infected, one can look at what the CDC broadly predicts for the 2019-2020 flu season, i.e., where quarantine, etc. are not mandated to some large extent. The CDC model is base on data from about 8.5% of the population. So if nothing is done and herd immunity is allowed to build and later a vaccine is developed, covid-19 might be like seasonal flu or could go the way of the 1918 Spanish flu.
If you want some scientists to give a range of possible best guesses, the CDC has some of the best epidemiologists who just might be scientists.

Well-written and insightful. Thanks!

When I lived in New York City, I was disconcerted and frightened by the mandated interdependence resulting from heavy traffic and absence of parking spaces that necessitated low personal inventory, absence of storage space for tools necessitating calling for handyman help instead of doing one's own repairs, and forced use of mass transit among other things. Being more intelligent than average and being at the mercy of people who predictably make stupid mistakes was terrifying. It still is.

I use that site. The raw data is also available from github.
Unfortunately, it only has confirmed, deaths, recovered, suspected.
I hope they will be expanding it with more useful data, but it may be designed to keep us from deducing what is really happening.

I see no coincidence at all. NYC is a major international travel hub and a boiling pot of people from all over this world all living like termites one on top of another. A real petri dish where a virus can flourish quickly. I live 90 miles NW of NYC and we do have some confirmed cases here with all traced right back to residents and second home owners traveling to and from the NYC metro area. Some counties mid state have no confirmed cases Yet.

The Johns Hopkins web site has the best data on the coronavirus, but to answer your question about where the scientists are, we are busy doing audio recordings of all of our future lectures, doing lecturing via Zoom from home, and/or shutting down on campus work until all this blows over.

The big areas of infection seem to be in wiidly liberal areas. I cant help but think its got something to do with their widly leftist and globalist ideas, along with stupidly prioritizing things that are unimportant, like the size of fast food drink cups

JB, where are the scientists in this? Are the medicos assembling any useful data?
All that is reported is confirmed cases, deaths, and recoveries.
What % of confirmed are serious enough to need hospitalization?
What % of those are serious enough to require emergency treatment?
What % tested are showing no symptoms?
Is ANYONE being tested that has no symptoms?
What % of the cases have other serious medical issues? How does that effect the outcome?
Where is the direct analysis of patients from detection to resolution?
I can think of lots of questions and I am not an expert.
Why is there no data being released that would make it possible to judge the personal risk?
Is the Trump administration receiving the same useless data that we are seeing?

And FL spring break.

I suppose Cuomo's threat is under a catch and release program, since he's releasing actual criminals from jails.

Is it any wonder that people want to move AWAY FROM cities? My county of over 1/2 million people has only 30+ cases and no deaths from coronavirus. We have just enough of the benefits of civilization with almost none of the problems. It would be nice to have join in Brenner's Gulch, but ... you'd have to self-quarantine for 14 days.

Brains? They have those? Could've fooled me!

I guess I'm pretty lucky! We disembarked from a cruise in New Orleans on March 8, which was coincidentally the first parade of the season. We managed to high-tail it out of there, I suppose just in time to avoid exposure, because we don't like crowds and we certainly don't like big, rowdy crowds that are drunk.

Now the headline is that Cuomo says stay in or face jail.

My guess ... a lot of New Yorkers went to Mardi Gras ... just a guess.

I like how the libs say "Trump isn't doing enough." Then he talks of an enforceable quarantine". Then Cuomo says, "I don't like the sound of that."

Haha!!!