Of course one might also note that the trail itself doesn't go through the highly populated areas that much - perhaps some of the NY section is fairly populated and does go through some of the areas that have been more impacted by the NYC cluster, not so much for most of NJ and also not once you are into CT/MA/VT onwards that way. Not sure of any other areas to the south either, it generally stays away from the larger cities for the most part (even the end is near, but not that close to Atlanta)?