; in New Orleans, the figure is just shy of 5%. In New Orleans, though, the positivity rate has accelerated from below 1%in early November; in Boston, it's risen from 5%. of cases, not on rapidity of spread. LA hit certain thresholds all at once — and locked down. New York isn't learning from this lesson, but desultory implementing its various levels of closures, dependent on certain thresholds. When the city's rate crossed 3%, it moved to shut down indoor dining.
Weeks ago, New York knew, or should have known, that the case trend would inevitably cross 3%, putting a halt to indoor eating. Yet even when cases crossed 3%, the state and city delayed this move, waiting for the positivity rate to reach 4%. New Orleans and Boston, too, are almost certain to shut down restaurants soon. So why not do it now, avoiding yet more exponential spread? States and cities are also internally inconsistent in their approach to risk.
States, and their respective cities, are supposed to be the laboratories of democracy. It may turn out, when all this is over, that a state like California, with a far more aggressive approach and aof 52 people per 100,000, below the national average of 90, fares better than a state like Florida, which dispensed with most pandemic restrictions in early fall, and which has a death rate of 92 and counting.