The US is a large and diverse country. Sociologically and geographically. There are many maps as graphical representations available. They are worth comparing. Here we see the recent NY Times Covid map next to other data sets that could have an impact on the epidemic. Like income level:
Income 2011 vs Covid January 2021
Blue collar jobs yield lower incomes, and they can not be as easily socially distanced and white collar ones. But California, Oregon and Main break the hypoythesis of “poor counties have more covid”.
Mask attitudes and acceptance of other social distancing patterns correlate with political leanings. California does not fit this narrative. Colorado vs Oklahoma could support it, but then the pattern of cases in New Mexico suggest the opposite.
Clearly: if you people live closer together then this make virus spread easier. Actually: For the virus to spread you only seem to need a 7/11. People live socially everywhere. Yes, in NYC you see easily thousands of people each day, but it appears that you can’t catch Covid from that attractive person on the other side of the street that you noticed while going to work.
This is our first winter with Covid. Of course everybody hopes it will be the last one two. Both Fauci and Drosten already talked in the beginning of 2020 about it. They both strongly suggest that this would be a hard time. So one could surmise that cold is good for team-virus. It seems that it also can be too cold for Covid to spread. The northern plains have much less of a problem now that it is really cold up there than those states in tempered climate.
It snowed in Spain in the last days. It would be interesting to follow their cases in the next weeks. If they go down then that will be very interesting.