There are many theories why New York has had the nation’s highest number of COVID-19 deaths, positive cases, and fatality rates per million population, writes Victor Davis Hanson reports in National Review:

Perhaps the culprit is the densely populated commute corridors into New York City — or its irresponsible Mayor de Blasio. Perhaps a contributor is the cold weather in the North.

New York has the unsettling distinction of leading all states in the number of total positive coronavirus cases, the absolute number of dead, and the per cpatial fatalities from the virus per million population.

Tragically, had New York State managed to keep its fatalities from the virus on par with that in other states of similar population size or even population densities, the evaluation of the United States would be quite different — even though at present the U.S. has already suffered a lower viral death rate per million population (238) than has Sweden (314); France (398); the U.K. (451); Italy (495); Spain (562) — or Cuomo’s New York State (1,367 ), a viral fatality rate per million that’s far higher than that of any nation of any size in the world, at least as known from present data.

Dealing with Two Epidemics

Given viral morbidity in New York and its environs, and given that the virus spread throughout neighboring states from those fleeing New York, and given its outlier status in the U.S. as a whole, in some sense we are dealing with two epidemics, an American contagion and a greater, more dangerous New York virus.