Over the last few weeks, reporter Charles Duhigg has been obsessing over one thing,

how to change the odds when it comes to the coronavirus.

He lives in Brooklyn, has gotten used to the sounds of sirens whizzing by his house.

It got him wondering how a place like New York might turn things around,

which is when he started researching a place that had already done just that,

Seattle.

What's interesting is it's very unusual for a place to be the epicenter of an outbreak

and then stop being the epicenter.

And that's exactly what happened in Seattle.

So in 1918, if you'll remember, Philadelphia was one of the first very public outbreaks of the disease and a large number of deaths.

You can see these pictures of like them digging trenches for graves in Philadelphia.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

And in the case of Philadelphia, it's because the leaders responded so poorly, right?

They still had this huge parade even when they knew that the influenza, the 1918 influenza was spreading. But what's

interesting is that Philadelphia remained somewhat of an epicenter throughout the entire pandemic.

I wanted to understand what did Seattle do that caused us to suddenly stop referring to it as

the epicenter of this disease.

Why did you want to compare Seattle and New York in particular? What was really interesting is that the outbreaks in Seattle and New York happen at roughly the same time.

And the fact that there was such a different outcome in New York and Seattle suggested to me that if we look at what

happened, it might suggest what causes this disease to spread and what doesn't.

For Charles, the story he's about to tell is a tale of two cities, one that saw a pandemic coming

and listened to its scientists, and one that saw the same thing and decided to wait

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