For those who don’t know, population density is the amount of people that live in a certain unit of area. For example, if there are 100 people in a 200-yard area, the population density would be 0.5/y, or .5 people per yard. This is used to measure the amount of people in any given area, compared to the amount of people in another area. For example, cities have extremely high population densities, while the countryside and such would have super small population densities.
While it may seem obvious, a higher population density makes the virus spread easier, is it really that simple? There is more than just one factor, in why high population density severely increases the spread of disease. Let’s use Australia as an example. When the coronavirus spread to Australia, everyone got super worried. Australia, however, was able to handle it extremely easily, due to the high population densities being in cities, spread far apart. The overall population density of Australia is extremely low. America has an extremely high population density in a lot of areas, such as New York, and combined with overall bad preparation, this virus is basically loose in our country! There isn’t much to be worried about, at least for us, since we’re young and (hopefully) healthy, but it’s still a pandemic.
There are two main factors of why population density increases the spread of disease. A. There are a LOT of people in a close area, obviously. This leads to higher rates of contact, or use of similar objects between any two people. B. The higher the population density is, the higher chance of it being a city. Many cities have a lot of people who don’t have healthcare, are lazy, careless, and overall jerks. They don’t care about others, and will do whatever they want. This really doesn’t stop the spread of the virus.
While it may seem obvious, population density affects the pandemic a ton. Austin is fairly dense, so we all have to be careful as to not get infected.