San Francisco is around 60% of the density of NYC. Outside of the US, cities like Taipei, Hong Kong, and Seoul are all similarly densely populated and have largely avoided the problems that have befallen New York due to quick responses and smart planning.

Basically, yes (technically it's #6): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

Yeah, but the truth is in what you don't say. The top 8 density areas were all NYC metro area, all of them small small population cities (<70k) except for NYC at #6 with over 8,000,000 population!

And the 5 above it are the same metro area.

I think for various reasons that population density metric does a bad job of capturing density as a metric relevant to infectious diseases. The percent of the population that uses public transportation is a probably a more relevant metric, and in NYC that might be over 100%, since so many non-residents use it.

OK, correcting you since you're wrong: It's not just New York City that's done badly, but smaller cities and areas of upstate New York that are quite similar to large parts of the rest of the country (that have done comparatively better).

> OK, correcting you since you're wrong: It's not just New York City that's done badly, but smaller cities and areas of upstate New York that are quite similar to large parts of the rest of the country (that have done comparatively better).

If by upstate NYC you mean Westchester County, that's still largely affected by the spread of the virus in NYC given how interlinked the two communities are.

Going by https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/new-york-coronav..., NYC is the most affected per capita, with Westchester placing #3

Yes, NYC had factors that made it particularly susceptible in a global pandemic of Covid-19: (1) high density (as you say), (2) lots of international travel to and from NYC, (3) heavily used public transit (covid virus lifespan on metal surfaces -- like poles people hang on to in subway trains -- is long).

Not to mention the fact that the American people were advised not to wear masks...