Population perspective

Novel virus pandemics produce panic, plain and simple. There are just too many people simultaneously knowing too little and fearing too much. Panic by definition produces hysteria, loss of self-control and irrational behavior.

None of those things are helpful for prudent decision-making.

So the last thing we want or need is a governor who panics. And it’s a point of Arkansas pride that — unlike a number of other states — Asa Hutchinson has managed to keep intellect and logic ahead of frantic action in response to the outbreak of covid-19 panic.

As of this writing, Arkansas is one of a handful of states that has not issued a “stay-at-home” order.

The main reason that most critics seem to offer, when asked, on why Arkansas should do so is because that’s what 40-something other states have done. Not because those states did so wisely, based on empirical evidence, with superior results, in which case we would be wise to follow them.

If some states did so recklessly or irrationally (cue the “jumped off a cliff” meme), we would be foolish to follow them.

What panic has pushed from the mind of the average person is the multiple-order-of-magnitude differences in population densities between the various states and, most importantly, how that affects virus transmission rates and risks.

There’s far more than an instinctive “city mouse, country mouse” trope involved in understanding the vast disparity between the world’s most densely populated cities and spread-out states like Arkansas.

Consider Wuhan, China. Much of the city’s central area has streetlevel densities of 18 people per acre or higher, and in the most concentrated areas that figure explodes to in excess of 111 people per acre.

Fewer than 10 Arkansas counties have as many as 111 people per square mile (/mi2), which is how we normally measure population density in America. Our state average is 51/mi2. Our most dense county’s population is Pulaski with 480/mi 2 .

To get on the same page metric-wise, Wuhan’s per square mile density is typically reported around 3,200/mi2, which is achieved by dividing its sub-provincial population of 11 million by its extremely large land area of 3,280 square miles — the equivalent of 3.5 times the entire population of Arkansas condensed into our three largest counties.

But Wuhan’s urban core density is much higher and more pertinent: 15,079/mi2, the quotient of 9 million people living within 590 square miles — imagine all the people of Arkansas and Missouri crowded inside the boundary of Lawrence County.

Inconceivably, Wuhan’s central concentrations rise to 71,040/mi2.

Adjusted to Wuhan’s per acre figure, Arkansas numbers shrink to nearly nothing. The state average is eightone-hundredths (0.08) of a person per acre. In half our counties, it’s less than four-onehundredths. Our densest urban areas barely average two people per acre.

There are some highly populated places in the U.S. with Wuhan-scale densities. New York City packs 8 million residents into 300 square miles. San Francisco squeezes 800,000 dwellers into only 47 square miles (roughly the size of Conway’s city limits).

But none of those places are in Arkansas, Nebraska, Iowa, or the Dakotas (to name the non-stay-athome-order states). Nor in Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Montana, Alabama, Georgia, Wyoming, Idaho or another 20 states.

There are only a few American localities, like Manhattan, where density ever exceeds 100 people per acre, which is 2,500 times (250,000 percent) higher than the 0.04 people per acre in most of Arkansas. Such an astronomical degree of variance renders population-related policy comparisons invalid, including the potential spread of a pandemic.

It’s not only absurd, but downright deceitful, to employ a scaremongering general exaggeration like “grow exponentially” as if it unilaterally applies to grossly dissimilar population densities.

The risks of an uncontrollable spread in places averaging 50,000 potential carriers per square mile — and the methods of mitigating those risks against inflicting potentially irreparable economic harm — are altogether different than the risks in inherently socially distanced places with only 30 people per square mile.

Low-density states like Arkansas already “slow the spread” naturally, which is why targeted directives are as effective here as broad stay-athome orders in populous states.

Some critics complain that refusal to issue a stay-at-home in order to keep people working prioritizes commerce above health. Those people underestimate the unhealthy stress that accompanies unexpected job loss and financial insecurity.

One of the most damaging effects of chronic stress is suppression of the immune system — a key vulnerability to covid-19 lethality. Among the countless as-yet-unanswered questions is to what degree throwing people into fiscal, maximum-stress turmoil makes them more susceptible to succumb to a coronavirus infection they might otherwise fight off under normal conditions.

It’s not blind allegiance to federalism that prompts dissimilar tactics for states that are night-and-day different in population density. It’s common sense, even when abandoned by a bunch of governors.

Arkansas’ governor and his team, and our populace as a whole, deserve kudos over how our state is doing so far against the coronavirus threat. Let’s hope we can lead as admirably once the corner is turned toward recovery.