How social capital helps communities weather the COVID-19 pandemic

Christos A. Makridis; Cary Wu

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0245135

Loading metrics

Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

How social capital helps communities weather the COVID-19 pandemic

Christos A. Makridis ,

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: makridis@mit.edu (CAM); carywu@yorku.ca (CW)

Affiliations W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6547-5897

⨯
Cary Wu

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: makridis@mit.edu (CAM); carywu@yorku.ca (CW)

Affiliation Department of Sociology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2652-5684

⨯

How social capital helps communities weather the COVID-19 pandemic

Christos A. Makridis,
Cary Wu

Published: January 29, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245135

Reader Comments

Post a new comment on this article

Alternative explanation

Posted by christiejeon on 11 Feb 2021 at 18:02 GMT

The association of social capital and infections is interesting, but have the authors considered some alternative explanations, like environmental factors that vary across county. The heat map is strongly suggestive of environmental factors that could influence virus viability and transmission dynamics. More provocatively, could social capital and interconnectedness potentially represent differences in immune robustness against new strains? More connected communities will have better 'virus update' due to more (not less) sharing of infections during usual times therefore ability to fend off new infections. In my opinion, communities with strong ties are less like to wear masks and distance from each other.

No competing interests declared.

Subject Areas
?

For more information about PLOS Subject Areas, click here.
We want your feedback. Do these Subject Areas make sense for this article? Click the target next to the incorrect Subject Area and let us know. Thanks for your help!

COVID 19
Is the Subject Area "COVID 19" applicable to this article?

Thanks for your feedback.
Population density
Is the Subject Area "Population density" applicable to this article?

Thanks for your feedback.
Pandemics
Is the Subject Area "Pandemics" applicable to this article?

Thanks for your feedback.
Social networks
Is the Subject Area "Social networks" applicable to this article?

Thanks for your feedback.
Religion
Is the Subject Area "Religion" applicable to this article?

Thanks for your feedback.
Social distancing
Is the Subject Area "Social distancing" applicable to this article?

Thanks for your feedback.
Age distribution
Is the Subject Area "Age distribution" applicable to this article?

Thanks for your feedback.
Virus testing
Is the Subject Area "Virus testing" applicable to this article?

Thanks for your feedback.

How social capital helps communities weather the COVID-19 pandemic

How social capital helps communities weather the COVID-19 pandemic

Reader Comments

Post Your Discussion Comment

Why should this posting be reviewed?

Thank You!

Alternative explanation

Posted by christiejeon on 11 Feb 2021 at 18:02 GMT