And the 5 above it are the same metro area.

Yeah, but the truth is in what you don't say. The top 8 density areas were all NYC metro area, all of them small small population cities (<70k) except for NYC at #6 with over 8,000,000 population!

I think for various reasons that population density metric does a bad job of capturing density as a metric relevant to infectious diseases. The percent of the population that uses public transportation is a probably a more relevant metric, and in NYC that might be over 100%, since so many non-residents use it.

> OK, correcting you since you're wrong: It's not just New York City that's done badly, but smaller cities and areas of upstate New York that are quite similar to large parts of the rest of the country (that have done comparatively better).

If by upstate NYC you mean Westchester County, that's still largely affected by the spread of the virus in NYC given how interlinked the two communities are.

Going by https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/new-york-coronav..., NYC is the most affected per capita, with Westchester placing #3

Not to mention the fact that the American people were advised not to wear masks...