As the Coronavirus spreads, the ranks of the dead in New York City continue to grow. As of this writing, thousands have already perished. Thousands more are expected to die in the weeks ahead. The victims include the old and infirm, but also the young and the perfectly healthy. The city remains the hardest hit among cities in the United States and, perhaps soon, the world.

New York’s extraordinary population density has turned it into a kind of petri dish of infection. The crowded mass transit system, with passengers packed cheek to jowl in buses and subway cars, provides a superconducting means of viral transmission. In the city’s prisons and homeless shelters, and in impoverished neighborhoods where housing is shared by multiple families, social distancing is an impossibility.

Those might be considered the natural factors, the inalterable givens of New York’s geography and demography. But there are man made political drivers as well, which span the ideological spectrum.

New York’s feckless leftwing mayor, Bill de Blasio, was slow to close the city’s schools, causing immeasurable damage. It did not help that as social distancing began to be encouraged in the city, he demonstratively flouted its strictures, showing up at his favorite Brooklyn gym for a workout.

On the right, is New York-based FOX News. Before they were instructed by management to perform an about-face, a chorus of Trump-loyal anchors and pundits and hosts downplayed the lethality of the infectious disease. Typical was Judge Jeanine Pirro, who explained to viewers that it was nothing to be worried about: “It’s a virus, like the flu. It actually can be mistaken for the flu—a sore throat, a cough, a fever. And by the way, it is flu season….So all the talk about coronavirus being so much more deadly doesn’t reflect reality.”