He says the opposite: “Nationwide, the number of official Covid cases has recently been somewhat higher in heavily Democratic areas than Republican areas, according to The Times’s data. That comparison doesn’t fully answer the question, though, because Democratic areas were also conducting more tests, and the percentage of positive tests tended to be somewhat higher in Republican areas.”
Add it up, and the data doesn’t suggest a big difference, as the author writes. All else being equal, an area which does more testing is going to pick up more positive cases per capita but fewer per test, which is in fact what’s happening here.
It may be hard for someone that hasn’t lived in a population dense area with a high reliance on mass transit to appreciate how drastically different the amount of social contact with strangers is compared to your typical small town or suburb of a mid-major city.
Say that on a typical pre-Covid day in NYC, I leave for work. I will probably pass a couple of people in hallway and share an elevator with 2 or 3 others. On the short walk to the subway, I will pass within 6 feet of 20, 30 people. If I stop to pick up coffee before I get on the subway, I will probably be within 6 feet of 5-10 other people and that exposure is for a longer amount of time….if I go to Starbucks the number of people is closer to 20-25. Then I stand on a crowded subway platform then pack onto a rush hour crowded subway car, there’s the extended less than 6 foot contact with dozens and dozens of other people during the ride……my average subway ride was 10-12 stops, and people get off and are replaced with other people, other vectors of exposure at each stop. Then I walk to my office or job site - more exposure and into the common elevator of the office building, which is typically packed tight at that time of day.
I’m less than an hour into my day and I’ve already had somewhat extended contact with around 50-100 strangers and casual contact with many more.
If I lived in the suburbs, i leave my house and get into my car without coming into contact with anyone. If I stop for coffee I’m in extended contact with 3-5 different people (double that if it’s Starbucks, they’re always crowded). Maybe in encounter a few people in the office building, but I most days I make it to work without encountering more than a handful of strangers.
Short of total lockdown,even if I practice my best social distancing in New York City, I’m still going to have WAY more social contact that I would if I lived in a suburb of a medium sized city or a small town and didn’t distance at all. It’s impossible to compare.