One interesting thing is to compare places like Japan and the US. From what I can tell Japan has much less of a problem with the virus despite people being packed in on top of each other. A couple of friends visited Tokyo and it sounds like their trains make the NYC subway look positively spacious even at rush hour.
One article I read suggested that the Japanese lifestyle is fundamentally more healthy than the American lifestyle, which sounds entirely plausible. The incidence of obesity is one thing but the levels of extreme obesity in the US are truly remarkable. I'm not exactly hugely traveled but I've been to a few places around Europe and the US and I've never seen obesity anything like the US anywhere else. In Europe being so fat you can't even walk without a mobility scooter is all but unheard of; in the US it seems to be not only accepted but all but expected that stores will lay on scooters for people so obese they can't walk under their own strength. People who are so morbidly obese they could lose half their body weight and still be morbidly obese, who ride around on mobility scooters eating super-jumbo sized ice cream and caramel corn appear to be one of many quirks of the US. And of course just about everything in the US offers drive-thru facilities because, you know, perish the thought someone might have to actually get out of their SUV and burn a few calories walking all the way to the counter. And then there's the diet, heavily processed food every which way and huge lines at McDonalds.
It's interesting to see the relative levels of panic around COVID and other things people freely choose to do. People panic that COVID can cause long-term lung damage but then smoke. People panic that COVID can damage their hearts but the lines at McDonalds don't get any shorter and people drive to get the mail because they can't be bothered to walk all the way to the end of their driveway, or they drive to the store that's less than 100 yards from their house.
Another interesting article I read looked at the correlation between severity of COVID symptoms and vitamin D deficiency. The article was clear that correlation doesn't automatically mean there is a causality but it was interesting to see a strong correlation between severity of COVID symptoms and vitamin D deficiency. The best way to get vitamin D is to be outside, but how many people seldom go outside other than for the walk (the shortest possible walk, naturally) between their air conditioned car and the air conditioned building they are going to? The vitamin D issue could also explain why non-whites suffer more because apparently they need more time in the sun for their skin to produce comparable amounts of vitamin D, with blacks needing more time than Hispanics, and Hispanics needing more time than whites. For good measure ultraviolet light is known as an antiviral (I think it's UV-C that's the most effective), which adds another reason to be out in the sun. Guess what you're not doing if you're "sheltering in place" or "staying home"?
Obviously anything that transmits based on human proximity will affect urban areas more than rural areas for no reason other than population density. At the same time, "stay home" looks very different if you live in a high-rise apartment block in the inner city compared to living in a house with a yard in a rural area. So the people who most need to get out and soak up some vitamin D are the ones most likely to be stopped from doing so by orders to stay at home. Not only that but such orders are more easily enforced in urban areas than rural areas.
I wonder how much issues like this will destroy cities, as those who can afford it may well look to move to more remote areas to escape the madness.
