Population Density

As I write this, we are seeing aggressive actions by governors in the northeast which are exactly what we need nationwide. I am doubtful we will see these sort of nationwide actions soon, but hopefully I'm wrong.

Obviously, we are trying to avoid "the Italian Scenario." I have some hope we might for a few reasons.  In certain areas, we are seeing the sort of aggressive actions NOW that Italy took TOO LATE.  The other is simply population density.  Look at this map:

Europe is very urban, and northern Italy, as you can see, is heavily urban, if we include towns. Those charming videos of Italians singing to each other on balconies is an example of the residential concentration most Europeans live in.  City centers are walkable and people live close to where they work.

The US has much less density, as you can see here:

And where have we seen the most cases? The red spots in Seattle, California, the Northeast and Florida.  Colorado and Louisiana also have more than 100 cases, and Georgia, New Jersey and Illinois will join them today.

This is why the governors of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey have gotten together to put in place a modified Italian lockdown. Patton Oswalt made a joke about trying to do what Italians did, by standing out on his lawn and doing stand-up in his suburban neighborhood. It was funny. But it also shows how different the experience could be in America.

Don't get me wrong.  This is bad and going to get worse.  But we might be saved by an accident of our geographic dispersal.