Robert Stacy McCain over at The Real McCain blog posted an interesting article on Sunday that helped clarify a lot of my thinking about what areas are being hit hardest by the Chinese Lung Pox. One of his main statistical examples is the state of Maryland, where diagnosed cases are 4.4 times higher and the death rate is 8 times higher in highly developed Prince George’s County (a generally well-to-do Washington D.C. suburb) than in Washington county, a fairly rural area in the state’s Western panhandle.
While various agenda-driven morons attempt to blame this disparity on racism (because a friggin’ virus can somehow distinguish between ethnicities), the truth is that exposure rates matter. People living in a highly populated area, sharing elevators, riding mass transit, and touching the same doors as lots of other people have significantly higher odds of eventually failing an encounter with Corona-chan than folks who have significantly less exposure simply by the fact of their daily routines. Roll the dice enough times and you’ll eventually come up snake-eyes.
I’m probably a good example of the latter group. I’m working from home, all of our social events have been cancelled, so most of our possible exposure as a family comes from grocery shopping day, or being really unlucky and breathing in some infected air while passing an asymptomatic walker during one of my long runs. I like my chances.