There are no blessings from a plague. It's a dark cloud without a silver lining.
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But if you have to live somewhere in this time of pestilence - and we do - some places are better than others.
Thank your unlucky stars, for example, that you live in Canberra and not Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Both cities have a similar population: about 400,000 people but the American city is heading towards 300 cases of COVID-19 and Canberra has just passed 100.
In Tulsa, there have been 16 deaths; in Canberra, two.
I'm not an epidemiologist, expert on the way disease spreads, and the factors are clearly complex and barely known at this stage.
But the shape of cities and the response of politicians are among them.
Political stupidity doesn't help against a plague.
Nor does population density.
Tulsa and Canberra have roughly the same number of people but the American city is dense compared with the spread-out Australian capital.
Tulsa has a population density of 783 people per square kilometre compared with Canberra's 173 uncrammed into the same area.
Studies of the initial impact of the coronavirus indicate that large, dense cities were more prone to its spread than less concentrated conurbations.
It seems obvious: commuting Canberrans are isolated in cars more than Londoners or New Yorkers packed into trains.
Avoiding contact is difficult in apartment blocks with a shared entrance and stairways and lifts and corridors. Bumping into people is less easily done in (largely) suburban Canberra.
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"One is large dense superstar cities like New York and London, with large flows of visitors and tourists, diverse global populations and dense residential areas."
Professor Florida adds some additional characteristics of regions prone to the spread of disease - and they aren't Canberra's characteristics, either.
"A second is industrial centers like Wuhan, Detroit, and Northern Italy, which are connected through supply chains," he says.
"The third is global tourist meccas like the ski slopes of Italy, Switzerland and France, and their counterparts in the Colorado Rockies.
"And in smaller communities, the virus targeted nursing homes and funeral parlours. And of course cruise ships, which are like dense small cities at sea."
Which brings us to politics and politicians.
Despite what you may think, our politicians both locally and nationally have been models of wisdom compared with those across the Pacific.
When the virus emerged, the prime minister in Canberra did not downplay the potential seriousness - in contrast to the president in Washington: "We have it totally under control ... It's going to be just fine."
The ACT's chief minister did not emulate the governor of Oklahoma who, a mere month ago, bragged about eating out during the epidemic.
According to The Oklahoman, governor Stitt "tweeted a picture on Saturday from an Oklahoma City restaurant with the comment: "Eating with my kids and all my fellow Oklahomans at the @CollectiveOKC. It's packed tonight."
The Labor/Green/Liberal/National federal and territory leaders in Canberra have been models of responsibility compared with the ruling party in much of the United States.
While allies of Mr Murdoch and Mr Trump called COVID-19 a hoax in America, we in Australia knew it wasn't.
Australia's curve is flat compared with the skyrocketing number of cases in the United States, so maybe the figures are starting to reward us for a quiet commonsense bigness of thought on this side of the Pacific.
It's early days, but keep at it. Keep your distance. There'll be a grand party one day.
- For information on COVID-19, please go to the ACT Health website or the federal Health Department's website.
- You can also call the Coronavirus Health Information Line on 1800 020 080
- If you have serious symptoms, such as difficulty breathing, call Triple Zero (000)
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Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
