New York and Hong Kong are comparable in many ways, starting with their size:
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About 8.4 million people live in New York,
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there are around 7.5 million in Hong Kong.
Because of the high property prices, building is going up, the citizens live close together:
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Hong Kong has an average of 7100 people per square kilometer,
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New York City even more than 10,000.
You get close, it is practically impossible to keep your distance in full elevators and subways. And yet Covid-19 has hit the two metropolises differently:
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50 days after the 100th case was registered there, New York City had 169,690 infections, more than all of Germany today.
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At the same time, Hong Kong was just above the smallest German state of Bremen with 1025 cases.
As of today, 19,174 New Yorkers have died of Covid-19, the number of deaths in Hong Kong is four. How did these drastic differences come about?
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Both cities are highly developed economic centers, which should generally promote disease control. In the pandemic, on the other hand, it makes its status as a hub of international trade and transport particularly vulnerable: both cities have an important container port and airports that serve as major hubs for major airlines.
In 2018, New York City received more than 65 million visitors, the last number in Hong Kong was 56 million. Any newcomer can potentially introduce the virus. Not only is Hong Kong closely connected to the People’s Republic of China, the outbreak of the epidemic – but also New York, home to the largest Chinese-born community outside of Asia, which according to the US statistics authority already had over 570,000 members in 2014. But even though the initial conditions were similar, the pandemic took a very different course in the two cities.
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Hong Kong recorded its first two Covid 19 cases on January 23, the day Wuhan was cordoned off. Those responsible in Hong Kong remembered the Sars epidemic in 2003. The result: alarm. The authorities carried out extensive tests, isolated infected people, and quarantined new arrivals. Schools were closed, major events were canceled and border crossings were gradually blocked until the government finally only allowed Hong Kong citizens to enter the country at the end of March.
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According to a study published in the specialist journal “Lancet”, 99 percent of Hong Kongers still wear a face mask when they leave the house. Such changes in everyday behavior have also made it possible to avoid a comprehensive lockdown.
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New York didn’t register its first case until early March. However, the virus had been rife in the city for several weeks, as scientists later found. Due to a lack of tests, this was initially not noticed. At the end of January, US President Donald Trump had imposed an entry ban on people who had been in China the 14 days before, but it was travelers from Europe who introduced the pathogen.
Compared to other hard-hit cities in the US, New York has only recently instructed its citizens to stay at home. When the number of cases soared, the health system was not up to the rush of the sick. The major social differences in the city also had a fatal effect.
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New York was also doomed that one of the early infected people turned out to be a so-called super spreader. The man from the town of La Rochelle infected more than 100 other people. So many negligence came easily in New York: bad luck.
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