Living in Brooklyn in a predominantly hispanic neighborhood (relevant only because the article mentions it hitting black and hispanic communities hardest), had to venture out this weekend for the first time in weeks to facilitate moving apartments.
Observations:
1. An incredibly high amount of people are out and about, even people who seem to just be socializing, standing around / hangout out on their stoop, talking to friends or neighbors, having small 5-15 person gatherings or cookouts (on their stoop), or going for walks (without pets). There is a big culture among natives of socializing outside in front of your building, gathering to share in smoking, eating, listening to music, and chatting, which is honestly a beautiful thing about New York when it isn't a pandemic. But these gatherings seemingly haven't decreased, at least not to the degree one might expect.
2. An incredible amount of people have access to surgical masks. This was news to me as I figured stocks were still depleted, but it turns out that they are to be found in a variety of pharmacies, groceries, hardware stores, bodegas etc. just at inflated prices and in small batches. I purchased a replacement pack of 6 surgical masks at my grocery store checkout counter for about a dollar each. I would estimate 80-90% of people in public here are wearing a mask, mostly surgical, a minority KN95 (also was available at the grocery I was at in individual units at a fairly high price) or bandana/improvised masks.
3. A huge percentage (maybe 30-45%)? of people that I see wearing masks seem to be putting them around their chins or wearing them over their mouth but with nostrils exposed or hanging around their neck. Or I see people pulling them down and only pulling them back up when they walk by someone or go into a store (most stores have signs on the entrance requiring masks but state that improvised is OK).
It's incredibly frustrating seeing people wearing PPE incorrectly and/or treating it as optional outside of stores.
4. The young transplant/white/yuppie minority population in the area seems to be either wearing masks correctly, clutching their grocery basket tightly with a stern look on their face or alternatively treating the whole thing like a joke and walking their dogs outside shining new development luxury buildings with a look of glee and wearing no masks at all. For the most part they are not to be seen at all except for seemingly in a grocery store or walking back from one, or walking a pet. Where I would normally see dozens of young, predominantly white hipsters in bars or at restaurants, coming and going to the subway, or just walking, now I see 10-20% of usual traffic of them.
5. Older people seem to be more likely than younger people to be wearing no mask, to be wearing a mask incorrectly, or to be just standing around on their front porch/stoop aimlessly.
Anyway, these are not meant to be construed as directly relevant as evidence for a cause for the present infection demographics as we don't have a complete picture of initial infections, of percentages of population that can work from home vs works outside as essential workers, etc.
But certainly if you asked me about what my hypothesis might be about the causes of minority populations in NYC having bad outbreaks, I would say we can't ignore self inflicted wounds due to bad education or cultural disregard / machismo around rules and authority, skepticism towards government or science, etc. No idea what the solution would be besides reducing inequality and lifting people out of poverty, improving their education, or role models within the communities stepping up and speaking out to those who flaunt social distancing.
Lastly, I don't think these communities are alone in not abiding by quarantine as much as they can, I think most of the United States is being as lackadaisical, but the initial seeded infection just had much more time to develop here unchecked so we're seeing those much worse outcomes despite most of the country also breaking social distancing rules in a multitude of ways.