The latest print issue of Economist has an editorial [@Americanway]. It is a good piece because it tries to paint a fair, fact-respecting picture, not to place false blame on anyone we happen to disagree or dislike. Being freak analytic myself, I would hold the same ground. More generally, leaving personal likes /dislikes out of the endless truth-seeking journeys, this is my “gold standard” for separating those I would take seriously from those I would not.

The central point of the Economist editorial is summarized in its subtitle “Contrary to what many Americans think, the death rate in America is about the same as in Europe” This conclusion, contrary to the Trump Death Clock [@Trumpdeathclock], helps us see a soberer fact that governments may or may not have all the power to make all the differences in how the virus is spread among different countries. The magazine then spelt out two conclusions based on this reasoning. One, that covid-19 is indifferent to presidents and two, it hits poor population harder.

Both conclusions are conditionally right. To be completely accurate, the virus is not entirely indifferent to presidents, because early interventions can and will make a significant difference, regardless of polity. Secondly, the virus is not completely targeting the poor either. Instead, it has selectively hit the poors with long lasting chronic illness and with obesity and diabetes.

We can learn something valuable from India. I checked, out of pure curiosity, how bad the coronavirus situation is in India, a country known with many ghettos, slums with a high population density. Interestingly, this article [@Indiapuzzle], although more than one month old, shows the death toll is surprisingly low, which puzzled experts.

Not many people or media have recognized the role of temperature and its impact on coronavirus. A simple fact is that the coronavirus is temperature sensitive. Above certain temperature like $25^\circ$C or $77^\circ$F, it can be killed quickly [see @sunheathumity]. However, A/C system would change everything because it cools down the temperature and worse still, circulate the same air in a small space so that it is easier and cheaper to keep the cool air for a longer time.

This should help explain why India has seen fewer death, even in ghettos — the temperature there is hot and there is no A/C, not in the slums at least!

The other condition of human density does hold its power, though. To be convinced, I looked at the death tolls by states of India and found the followings. First of all, death tolls were not distributed evenly. Instead, the second largest state, Maharashtra, which has almost 10% of the nation’s population, also has the most deaths of 1,897 out of the total of 4,531 as of May 20, 2020 [@Indiadeaths]. But the largest state, Uttar Pradesh, which holds more than 16\% of national population, only had 58 deaths so far. The difference is in urban population. Uttar Pradesh only has 22.27% urban population, while Maharashtra has 45.22%. Its largest city is Mumbai, which has Asia’s largest slums especially the place called “Dharavi”. What is the latest death toll there? 61 [@Dharavideath] for an area of just over 2.1 square kilometres but a population of about 1,000,000. With a population density of over \(277,136/km^2\) according to Wikipedia [@Dharavidemo]. This is very interesting pattern: Even though the population density is extremely high, even though healthcare system is extremely weak, with high temperature and plenty of sun light, without A/C the slum managed to have much lower death than expected.

The true effect of sunlight, heat and humidity should mean that the country can be open for the most part during the summer — as long as people do not use A/C too much and they go outside during the day.