Well to me they are.

I see no reason to count the population of random cities that have nothing to do with one another, other than being somewhat in the vicinity and then attribute them to the biggest city in that area (which in this case would be San Jose and not San Francisco). Call it the San Francisco Bay Area and everything is fine.

Cities are legal entities with explicit limits, metropolitan areas are just a concept and can change depending on the definition at any given time.

Current case number is low enough that I can hope case tracking is actually working to reign it in. But there are still problematic areas. The mother of my friend had it, and people in her household only got a test with symptoms showing. Also only members of the samehousehold were isolated. So definitely we in germany don't do the same contact tracing as South Korea or Vietnam. Still, maybe with all the mask and other stuff, that might be enough? We'll see.

Soo.. safe to say that the whole social distancing thing is over now? Lol..

Thousands (and perhaps hundreds of thousands) of "protestors" and rioters are burning half of America down to the ground as I speak. Oh but at least most are wearing masks! Smh..

Honesty, I'm having serious thoughts of fleeing this stupid country to Canada or Italy as soon as I get the means. Shit's in utter chaos and all our politicians and leaders do is point the finger at the other party, using them as their boogeymen so nothing ever gets done. Sorry to get off topic and go on a tangent but I'm legit scared and depressed about the absolute state of my nation and I have to vent somewhere..

Yeah it doesn't work like that for every city but for most. I mentioned much earlier the example of Brussels which is similar to London in that regard.

However, Greater London (population of 8.9m) is an administrative region a thus a legal entitiy with explicit limits while the London metropolitan area (population of 14.4m) or the Greater London Built-up Area (population of 9.8m in 2011) are not.
Within Greater London, all districts around the city of London (even the City of Westminster) are London Boroughs, so it's pretty obvious that they belong together.

The US isn't a democracy, though. Actual democracies don't really have that problem. Of course the pointing fingers stuff is there but it doesn't have all of the lies, deception and things actually get done. Democracy is pretty alright if you have it and also actual politicians. The US doesn't have the former and only a small handful of the latter.

You can see that really well in the corona response. The states who fucked it up actually don't have any politicians, while the few that are giving it their best have one of the rare ones.

The US politics thread welcomes each and everyone who wants to shit on the US.

The US isnt a direct democracy. You guys dont follow the majority rule.
You dont follow that every vote is equal.   I would say America has a "weak" form of democracy compaired to many other places in the world.

Donald Trump only had 46% of the votes, to Hilarys 54%.
Bush only had 49% of the votes to Al Gores 51%.

These things shouldnt happend imo.
The system isnt fair, and republicans are drawing lines on maps, setting times&dates, and effecting the peoples ability to vote, in favor of themselves to beat the system. Ontop of how unfair it even is, that you can win by a minority of the votes.

The election isn't direct either. They aren't voting for the president but for the elector who will then go on to vote for the president. Electors are just random guys appointed by the political parties, so they don't have any kind of legitimation of the people. In some states the name of the elector you're voting for isn't even on the ballot.

EDIT: Re-reading your post, I think that's what you meant by "US isn't a direct democracy".

Either-way, the discussion of democracies and political voting isn't on-topic for the COVID thread.

Wasn't sure if this should go here or in the Sony or Gaming forums as a thread in its own right, but I thought this thread the safest bet, so...

-America is inarguably more sharply divided along political lines today than at any time since the American Civil War.

-A nigh-inescapable illness has appeared suddenly.

-People have spent much of this year huddled away, deliberately avoiding contact with other human beings and relied on delivery services to avoid going out and social media to re-establish communication with each other.

Seriously, right down to many of us surviving on say energy drinks instead of water for at least a period of time, Death Stranding's dystopian premise has proven to be distressingly prescient this year, just months after its launch.

I declared Death Stranding the most socially pertinent game of last year shortly after playing it late last year, mostly just owing to my first bullet point above. I have not a single regret about that. Half a year on, this game has aged far better than most do, IMO. Horrifyingly well. Too well.