(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Is More Immigration Really the Key to America’s Tech Future?

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Cato Institute, China, education, entrepreneurs, Germany, H-1B visa, immigrants, Immigration, India, innovation, Israel, Japan, skills, South Korea, start-ups, Taiwan, technology, Washington Post, Worldometers.info, {What's Left of) Our Economy

One of the most compelling – and most often made – arguments in favor of higher U.S. legal immigration levels has to do with innovation. Supposedly, without encouraging ever more foreign workers to move to America, the nation will never be able to maintain its global technology leadership, and ultimately an acceptable, much less improved, degree of prosperity. (See, e.g., here and here.)

Part of the rationale for a welcoming posture, as indicated above, has to do with policies toward highly skilled and educated immigrants in particular (like those admitted under the H-1B program), and the special visa quotas allotted to them. But as the Washington Post editorial board recently made clear, there’s a more general view that immigration is especially good at providing America with “a steady supply of working-age strivers” and that “This nation’s prosperity, pluck, ambition and effervescent character are the products of more than 100 million immigrants who have sought better lives in the United States since its founding.” In other words, immigrants are far more likely than the native-born population to possess the risk-taking and general entrepreneurial traits that lead to so much technological progress.

I’ve already debunked one aspect of these claims here, but because they keep popping up, I keep thinking more about them, and have come across more data that not only casts further doubt on the technology-related need for more immigrants, but that indicate that the immigration cheerleaders are putting the cart before the horse.

For instance, it’s widely agreed that the U.S. tech sector is considerably healthier than Germany’s. In this vein, a widely followed global innovation index issued each year by a United Nations agency ranks the former third in the world and the latter ninth. Ninth isn’t so bad, but it’s at the least curious in this regard that for decades at least, Germany has admitted many more immigrants as a share of total population than has the United States.

Indeed, in 1990 (a good starting point, since current Germany came into being with the reunification that year of the former Federal Republic that comprised the nation’s western part and the former Communist run east), Germany’s immigrant inflow of 1.256 million represented 1.59 percent of the new country’s 79.054 million inhabitants. The 1.536 million green cards awarded by the United States that year accounted for only 0.60 percent of its 252.120 million people. (My official sources for German and U.S. annual immigration totals are here and here, respectively. For population, I used the reliable Worldometers.info website.)

But maybe Germany has made up some ground on the United States during this nearly three-decade period? Not according to this study last year from the Cato Institute – one of America’s foremost supporters of much more lenient U.S. immigration policies. If you look at Figure 2, you see that in 2018, Germany was lagging the United States just about as badly in the number of patents it received in the United States (still the world’s most important market for technology) as it was in 1990.

There doesn’t seem to be much evidence that its relatively large immigration inflows have given Germany much of an edge in entrepreneurship, either. As of 2019, according to this source, Germany’s business start-up rate was less than half that of the United States.

This chart, moreover, makes clear that it’s not just the U.S.-Germany comparison that mucks up the ostensible relationship between tech prowess and entrepreneurship on the one hand, and immigration levels on the other. After all, in 2019, India’s start-up rate was also much higher than Germany’s – even though India is much better known for sending folks abroad than for attracting them. Foreigners aren’t exactly flocking to live in China, either, yet its start-up rate matches Germany’s.

That Cato Institute study provides more complicating international comparisons. That Figure 2 shows that as of 2018, Israel has forged into the lead as the country receiving the largest number of U.S. patents. And its performance started taking off in the mid-1990s. Yet in 1995, when Germany and Israel were roughly on a par in their ability to receive American patents, the 76,361 immigrants Israel admitted in 1995 equalled 1.36 percent of its population of 5.619 million – not far from relatively un-innovative Germany’s figures. By the time it became the international leader, Israel’s immigration rate had fallen to 0.32 percent of its 8.972 million population – much lower than that of Germany, which had become a clear als-ran on the U.S. patent scene – and roughly the same as the recent U.S. rate which has been decried as so woefully inadequate.

And look at the other top performers in Figure 2 other than the United States and Israel. Taiwan hasn’t been anything close to an immigration magnet, either, and ditto for South Korea. As for Japan, it’s long been known as one of the most xenophobic countries in the world (as noted in that Washington Post editorial).

What do the non-U.S. “patent tigers” identified by Cato have in common? As author Jonathan M. Barnett puts it:

“Short on consumers, resources, and labor (and saddled with geographic separation from key consumer markets), the patent tigers (especially Israel and Taiwan) were compelled to specialize in innovation-intensive segments of the global supply chain in which ingenuity, rather than labor or natural resources, conferred a competitive advantage.”

As a result, as widely agreed, they’ve worked hard to create top-notch educational systems for their own populations. German education is highly regarded, too, but it’s often observed that its history and culture in particular have discouraged self-starters.

The lessons for the United States seem pretty clear here.  On the one hand, it’s got lots of the overall population, raw materials and domestic markets that the patent tigers lack.  On the other, unlike Germany, it still enjoys an entrepreneur- and innovation-friendly culture.  If Americans did a much better job of educating their own people, especially in the math, science, and technology fields, they should be able to keep its global technology edge even while controlling immigration more tightly. 

If, however, the nation continues to coddle underperforming school systems, especially at the primary and secondary levels, the argument for relying on immigration to fill the tech gap will look all the stronger.  And in a supreme irony, the ready availability of highly skilled and educated immigrants will keep reducing national incentives to get the national education act together.      

Im-Politic: For Biden, It’s Americans Last on Migrants and the Virus

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asylum seekers, Biden, CBP, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, detention, Donald Trump, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, ICE, Im-Politic, immigrants, Immigration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Journal of the American Medical Association, lockdowns, Mexico, migrants, Remain in Mexico, stay-at-home, testing, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, Worldometers.info, Wuhan virus

Some of you might have heard and been concerned about reports that President Biden’s new policies will result in migrants caught by U.S. border authorities being released into the United States without being tested for the CCP Virus. If you knew how much potential for superspread these policies hold, you’d be even more concerned.

Under President Trump, the problem appeared under control because Washington ended the policy of processing migrants who crossed the southern border illegally and then releasing them into the United States to await future hearings on their requests for permanent residency. Instead, apprehended migrants claiming to be asylum seekers, were returned to Mexico (whatever their nationality) until their cases could be brought up. And last March, these policies were extended to all would-be border crossers due to pandemic concerns.

Yet due at least partly to the Biden administration’s immigration-welcoming statements and actions (including during the campaign), migrant flows northward have surged, and current U.S. detention centers have been filling to overflowing despite American court orders preventing them from holding detainees for more than 72 hours in certain facilities in Texas. Worsening the situation has been Mexico’s new refusal in some instances to accept migrants expelled from U.S. territory. (See here for details.) And the new U.S. President seems determined to facilitate immigration inflows generally.

Therefore, the U.S. Customs and Border Enforcement (CBP) agency publicly acknowledged last week that “some migrants will be processed for removal, provided a Notice to Appear, and released into the U.S. to await a future immigration hearing.” Crucially, this practice is proceeding even though CBP doesn’t test arrivals for the CCP Virus unless symptoms are visible. (See the previously linked article for the statement.) 

Which is where the public health threat comes in. Because data from the virus has seemed to be unusually prevalent among these migrants. To begin with, although figures only go through August, a paper published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that the monthly rate of cases in detention centers was more than 13 times that for the U.S. population as a whole.

Although the JAMA authors wrote that increased testing at the centers only partly explains these high numbers, it also points out that they may also stem from “challenges faced implementing the Pandemic Response Requirements” – like overcrowding. At the same time, they confirm that because asymptomatic detainee testing has been “limited,” even these case numbers could be underestimates. And since migrants tend to be relatively young, asymptomatic cases are surely more common than among legal U.S. residents generally.

The total number of virus cases found among migrants in the detention centers since February has been small – just over 9,300. But the real measure of the danger comes from the incidence of the CCP Virus in the migrants’ main native countries – which look to be sources of large and ever greater greater supply going forward.

Yes, their overall case rates are much lower than their U.S. counterparts, as these data from the Worldometers.info website show:

cases per million

U.S.:                  83,687

Mexico:            14,920

Guatemala:         9,052

Honduras:         15,573

El Salvador:        8,708

One big reason, however, is that they’ve done so little testing, as these numbers from the same source make clear:

tests per million

U.S.:               984,900

Mexico:            37,781

Guatemala:      45,624

Honduras:        39,569

El Salvador:   110,338

Given the immense virus-related uncertainties revealed by these statistics, any measures that increase the numbers of untested migrants in the United States are simply incomprehensible for any government taking seriously the obligation to protect its own population. And given the tight controls already restricting individual, group, and business activities in the United States, these Biden decisions seem even less defensible.

It’s one thing for the new President to reject an America First framework for public policy. It’s quite another to adopt positions that merit the bizarre and perverse label “Americans Last.”

Im-Politic: Germany’s Looking Like an Increasingly Tarnished Anti-CCP Virus Gold Standard

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CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Germany, Im-Politic, infections, lockdowns, mortality, reopening, shutdowns, stay-at-home, Worldometers.info, Wuhan virus

As the now-well-worn (but still pretty darned good!) wisecrack goes, “I’m old enough to remember when Germany was held up as a model for fighting the CCP Virus.” (See e.g., here and here.) And as this gibe implies, that portrayal of Germany keeps getting exposed as premature.

In fact, by several key grim virus metrics, Germany has caught up with the United States – which of course has just as often been held up as a model for how not to fight the pandemic.

For example, according to the Worldometers.info website, on a per capita basis, Germany’s daily death rate is now greater than the United States’. As of last Friday (I’m skipping the weekend numbers because CCP Virus-related info tends to get reported more slowly on Saturdays and Sundays), Germany’s new reported virus-related fatalities were 30 percent of America’s (838 vs 2,794). Yet Germany’s population (83.91 million) is only 25.28 percent of America’s (331.91 million).

Germany’s performance looks better in terms of seven-day average (7DA) daily figures – which are more accurate because they smooth out the inevitable random daily fluctuations. On December 18, the German figure of 598 was only 23.15 percent of its U.S. counterpart of 2,583.

But major German catch-up has still taken place. And it’s been going on for months. October 16 is when the American 7DA daily fatality total began its latest big move. That day’s figure was 716. So between then and December 18, it rose by 260.75 percent.

October 16 is just before Germany’s current death surge, and that day, the 7DA stood at 21. So through December 18, it’s risen by 2,748.62 percent. That’s more than ten times faster.

The new daily infections numbers tell a similar story. Let’s cut to the chase and examine the 7DAs. By this measure, the United States’ current and worst CCP Virus wave began about October 5, when the daily 7DA stood at 44,691. By December 18, it was up just under 400 percent.

Germany’s current wave (a true second wave) began about the same time, and on October 5, the 7DA for daily new infections stood at 2,292. As of December 18, the figure was 24,460 – a level just over 967 percent above October 5’s, and a rate of increase more than twice as fast as the United States.’

None of this means that Germany’s virus strategy has been a failure, and certainly doesn’t mean that America’s has been a success. In the first place, serious measurement problems continue to plague the infection and mortality data everywhere. (See, e.g., here.)

In the second place, it’s not cricket to compare any geographic regions’ CCP Virus strategies without taking major virus-related differences into account. In this case, it’s crucial to note that temperatures affect the virus’ spread, and that Germany got colder faster, at least between October and November, than the United States.  (For the U.S. data, see here. For the German data, see here.) Germany is also about seven times more densely populated than America, and its relatively crowded conditions alone clearly encourage virus spread. Moreover, it’s not as if Germany has locked down consistently since the CCP Virus’ arrival.

At the same time, the German-American differences in temperatures and temperature changes have hardly been enormous. (Further complicating the weather analysis – the United States’ enormous size also means enormous weather variance from region to region.) And the population density hasn’t changed during this year. So the gaps between these variables can’t possibly begin to explain why Germany’s current surge – albeit from much lower absolute starting levels – has been so much worse than the United States. But they’ve been the statistics used most often to judge virus strategies, so it seems fair to examine exactly what they’ve revealed lately.

Nor does it make sense to blame Germany’s relatively poor performance this fall and winter so far on its various reopenings. Unless you think shutting down an entire national economy for that many months consecutively, with no relief, is a viable approach to a pandemic.

Instead, it’s time to recognize, especially for lockdown and mask-wearing and other mass restrictions enthusiasts, that if – even before the pandemic is one year old – countries with mitigation approaches as far apart as those of Germany and the United States have been so widely labeled can see such completely unexpected infection and mortality results, the establishment conventional wisdom on sweeping behavioral curbs is weaker than advocates insist. And consequently, the best possible tradeoffs between CCP Virus spread and mortality effects on the one hand, and other public health and economic costs on the other, shouldn’t be regarded as set in stone.

Im-Politic: Lockdowns vs Reopening, Apples-to-Apples

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CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Democrats, domestic violence, education, Im-Politic, Kristi Noem, lockdowns, mental health, Michelle Lujan Grisholm, New Mexico, Republicans, shutdown, South Dakota, stay-at-home, substance abuse, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Worldometers.info, Wuhan virus

Truth in advertising: The more I look into CCP Virus economic restrictions and regulations on mask-wearing, the more skeptical about their anti-virus power I become. That’s not to say that I believe they have no mitigating effect at all, or even that they have only marginal impacts in absolute terms.

But when it comes to the lockdowns and shutdowns, the evidence keeps telling me that the differences in virus-related outcomes so far between states and countries that have imposed the most and the fewest contain too many inconsistencies (especially during the current second virus wave) to dismiss. And of course the case for them becomes even weaker upon considering the kinds of economic and public health costs they’ve inevitably exacted, and which I’ve been writing about since March.

In terms of mask-wearing, as I’ve explained before, my objections center not on those non-virus costs (because there seem to be none) but on what I’ve called the fetishization of this practice, and the illusions it seems to be breeding.

I’ve been hesitant to weigh in more fully on the debate over lockdowns per se because apples-to-apples comparisons are so difficult to find. Too many entries concentrate tightly on differing restrictions regimes and too few take into account crucial variables like population density and weather and median age of inhabitants After all, all else equal, localities where people are tightly packed together are obviously going to face greater spread challenges in particular than those in which they’re few and far between. Ditto, especially when it comes to the current second wave, for localities where winter begins earlier and settles in more persistently. And it’s by now well-established that the elderly are by far the most vulnerable segment of any population.

Within these United States, however, I think I’ve found two states that have taken radically different anti-virus strategies, and that are pretty similar demographically. And their experiences make a pretty convincing case for the anti-lockdown (and mask) side.

The two states are New Mexico and South Dakota – both largely rural and therefore both thinly populated. Only 17 inhabitants are found per square mile in the former and just ten in the latter. And those in percentage terms, the gap is wide, clearly both are dominated by wide open spaces. (The national average is 87.4 – all these figures come from the 2010 Census.) The median ages of their people as of 2019 is similar, too – 38.6 years for New Mexico and 37.7 years for South Dakota. (The national average was 37.7 that year.)

An initial examination indicates that New Mexico and its Democratic Governor has performed considerably better against the CCP Virus than South Dakota and its Republican Governor – who’s sometimes villified for all but fostering a death cult.

Since the pandemic’s arrival in the United States in sometime near the beginning of this year (or was it late last year?), New Mexico’s cases per million have been just over half those of South Dakota (98,386 as of today, versus 52,435, according to the reliable Worldometers.info website). And its death rate per million has been much lower, too – 837 per million versus 1,256, according to the same source.

But the biggest difference of all? New Mexico has been one of the states that has locked down and restricted most extensively, according to the New York Times‘ compilation of this information. It’s latest batch of restrictions started last month, when Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham ordered non-essential businesses to close, and put into effect a two-week stay-at-home order. There’s been some relaxation since then, but The Times reports that all but one of its counties remains in the most restrictive lockdown phase. Moreover, mask-wearing is mandatory.

In South Dakota, meanwhile, Governor Kristi Noem has never ordered a lockdown or mask mandate.

And given this striking contrast, the differences between the two states’ anti-CCP Virus approaches don’t look nearly so great.

Moreover, they look even less impressive during this second wave period. Even though the pandemic’s human toll in New Mexico has been lower than in South Dakota overall, recently the trends have tracked surprisingly closely.

South Dakota’s current case surge began October 6, when the seven-day average of daily recorded new infections was 409. This figure peaked November 14 (having risen by 256.48 percent during those five weeks), and since then has fallen by 40 percent, to 875 as of yesterday.  (These figures come from the Washington Post ‘s excellent searchable database.) 

New Mexico’s current case surge began three weeks later (November 1), at a seven-day daily average of 767 new infections. It peaked just three weeks later, on November 23, at 2,671 – and its rate of increase was only slightly slower than South Dakota’s. Since then, through yesterday, it’s down a little faster than South Dakota’s (43.69 percent).

Also undercutting the “death cult” charges: South Dakota’s weather began turning colder about two weeks before New Mexico’s, and has stayed colder since. The patterns for both states have been pretty choppy, but you can see the details at this database. (I looked up the info for Pierre, South Dakota, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, specifically.)

Over the next two weeks, the U.S. government will be releasing data that will provide a much clearer, up to date picture of the CCP Virus’ state-level economic toll (through November for employment, through the third quarter for growth) – and an indirect indication of its non-virus health (especially mental health and substance abuse-related) and social costs (e.g., domestic violence, children’s educational achievement). These figures will permit pronouncing a much more comprehensive, convincing judgment as to whether policy cures implemented for the virus have been better or worse than the disease.

Im-Politic: Is the U.S. Really a CCP Virus Outlier?

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CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, lockdowns, shutdowns, therapeutics, Trump, vaccines, Worldometers.info, Wuhan virus

It seems pretty clear that President Trump is in serious danger of losing Election 2020 in part because of his handling of the CCP Virus. Much less clear, especially as a second virus wave washes over not only the United States much of the rest of the world, is whether, as frequently charged , Mr. Trump’s record has been such an outlier. And if this allegation is still clear to you, consider the following data showing the rising numbers of infections in the world’s major high-income economies.

The period covered is, with the exception of France, October 2 (around the time when increases began significantly increasing) to yesterday (November 9). The numbers come from the well regarded Worldometers.info website:

United States: 140.20 percent

France: (Oct. 3): 18.75 percent

Spain: 74.62 percent

United Kingdom: 81.64 percent

Italy: 911.33 percent

Germany: 481.19 percent

Netherlands: 22.35 percent

Canada: 117.61 percent

Sweden: 380.20 percent

Japan: 53.07 percent

It’s important to note that these percentages could well change dramatically on very short notice – because some have already changed dramatically in the last few days. For example, through November 7, France’s increase was 411.74 percent. Through October 30, the Netherlands’ was 190.69 percent.

But it’s even more important to note that, especially taking these recent and potential fluctuations into account, America’s results are in the middle of the pack – and even closer to the lower end.

Although any evaluation of these statistics also needs to recognize that major, virus-relevant differences separate these countries (e.g., population density, climate, various demographics), they’re also separated, as widely noted, by substantially different approaches to CCP Virus mitigation. (Regarding population density in particular, that’s why I’m not mentioning very small, crowded European countries like Belgium and Switzerland and Luxembourg. In fact, I almost left out the Netherlands for this very reason.)

And in this vein, it’s more than a little interesting with worst recent records than the United States are Germany and Italy – where lockdowns of their economies and societies have been much more prompt and complete than in the United States.

This leaves the continuing major knock on the Trump record the exceptionally big absolute numbers of virus infections in the United States (including on a per capita basis) compared with those of peer economies and societies. It’s a big knock. But unless you think that large countries can or should be shut down until whatever public health goal their governments happen to set at a given time (bending the curve? slowing the spread? “crushing the virus”?), it shouldn’t be difficult to recognize that the appearance of a second wave immediately following the first reopenings in heavily locked down countries shows that putting the clamps on at best kept the virus temporarily dormant.

One possible conclusion to which these common problems being faced by such a diverse group of countries is one that the American character seems especially resistant to — that not all problems are readily solvable, or solvable at all, or even easily mitigated (at least until science figures out how to produce safe and effective vaccines and cures much faster). And if many of President Trump’s critics can be faulted for such assumption, he’s guilty of similar pollyannism due to his numerous claims that the virus is “under control” – even though nothing about its spread through Europe, in any case, indicated that enduring progress like this was possible at these stages.

That’s not to say that Americans shouldn’t prize their can-do spirit, or that governments are helpless in the face of such disasters – especially since, as far as is known, this disaster wasn’t government- or man-made. And it certainly doesn’t mean that better performance (in addition to better messaging) shouldn’t be expected and demanded. But it does point to the need to scale back expectations and demands, specifically to the realm of the doable, of tradeoffs and genuinely tragic choices, and of the priority-setting that naturally follows.

There’s no guarantee that national leaders will be rewarded for this kind of sober realism. But if this latest U.S. presidential election is any indication, there’s no guarantee that peddling overly rosy scenarios pays off with voters, either.

Im-Politic: Even Globally, Much of the CCP Virus Story is a New York Story

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CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Im-Politic, London, New York City, New York State, San Marino, The New York Times, United Kingdom, Worldometers.info, Wuhan virus

On Saturday, I posted about the astonishing (at least to me) extent that the CCP Virus crisis in the United States is a nursing home story. Today I’m presenting an even more jaw-dropping finding (at least to me): To an at least equally astonishing extent, the U.S. coronvirus crisis is a New York State and New York City crisis. In fact, the world totals are profoundly affected by the New York State and City numbers as well.

It’s not that the New York-centric nature of the outbreak in America has been ignored. But it’s still shocking to find out, for example, that according to the reliable Worldometers.info website, total State virus cases (293,991 as of early this morning – the same as for all the Worldometers data immediately following) account for not only nearly 30 percent of the 988,928 U.S. cases. They represent nearly one in ten reported cases worldwide.

When it comes to deaths, New York State’s 22,275 represents a much higher 40.70 percent of all American fatalities, and more than a tenth of the global total of 207,970.

Put differently, if New York State was a country, its 293,991 total cases would rank second in the world – behind only the 988,928 total U.S. cases. For mortality, if the State was a country, its 22,275 fatalities total would rank fourth behind the United States, Italy, Spain, and France.

Adjusted for total population, though, the State’s role is even more prominent. With 14,985 cases per one million residents, its infection rate would be second, globally – behind the 15,856 figure for the tiny European republic of San Marino (which is completely surrounded by northern Italy, itself a virus hot spot). New York State’s death rate per million (1,135) also trails only San Marino’s (1,208).

New York City’s place in the U.S. and global pictures is more prominent, still. These numbers for the five boroughs come from The New York Times, and they seem to cover a slightly different time-frame than the Worldometers numbers (which don’t provide statistics for major cities). But these differences are marginal at best, and leave the over situation virtually unchanged.

With 158,268 recorded cases, New York City alone contains 16.00 percent of the U.S. total, and its 11,648 deaths come to 21.00 percent of all U.S. deaths.

As for the global comparison, New York City’s cases equal just under 5.25 percent of worldwide infections, and its fatalities are 5.60 percent of the global total.

If New York City alone was a country, however, its case totals would rank fifth worldwide, and its fatalities sixth. When the population adjustments are made, both New York City’s 1,874 cases per million and it 1,380 deaths per million are the world’s worst if the city was a country.

For a final set of statistics showing how outsized New York City’s CCP Virus has become, let’s compare it with London – another huge metropolis that boasts vast, normally jammed subway and bus systems. In fact, their populations are pretty similar – with New York’s at just under 8.4 million and London’s at just under 9 million. (Both totals are the first that came up on Google searches.)  Moreover, like the United States, the United Kingdom has been criticized for its response to the disease.

But New York City’s 158,268 CCP Virus cases are 6.7 times London’s 23,608. And its 11,648 fatalities are 2.53 times London’s 4,606. (See here for the London virus data.) 

One reason for part of the disparity – London (with 18,679 people per square kilometer according to this source) is less than half as densely populated as New York City (38,242 residents per square kilometer). But although London’s lesser degree of crowding seems nicely to explain the fatality gap, it appears to have much less to do with the infection gap – which would seem to be more closely related to density.

Any way you slice it, however, both the U.S. and even global CCP Virus stories are New York stories. That may mean that the recovery story will depend largely on New York as well.