This is an updated version of my diary from one week ago under the same title.
The COVID-19 pandemic shouldn’t be a partisan thing.
Tragically, in the Age of Trump, everything has become ultra-partisan...even a public health emergency. Even wearing a fucking mask to prevent infection has become a Partisan Statement®.
Since policy is being dictated by partisan politics, it does no good to try and pooh-pooh anyone who looks at the spread of the virus on a partisan basis. We have to do so because Trump has forced the issue.
With that in mind, the graph above shows the official number of positive COVID-19 cases per 1,000 residents according to Johns Hopkins University’s Center for System Science & Engineering Dept. I’ve been tracking their data very closely every day for months now.
I’ve grouped all 50 states + DC into three categories: Blue, Red and Swing. Your definition of “Swing State” will vary, of course, but for this chart I’m assuming it includes 11 states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Throughout March, April and May, Trumpsters pooh-poohed the pandemic as being a “Democrat problem” if they didn’t claim it was a hoax altogether.
By June, however, the tables had turned: Most of the blue states had gotten their act together, while the red states, most of which either didn’t do anything beyond the bare minimum (or which closed down only to re-open way too early again) began to get hit harder.
In July, the blue states have started to get hit again (California in particular), but the red states have basically turned into an out of control wildfire.
Assuming their current trajectories remain roughly the same as they have been for the past week or so, I’d expect the red states to overtake the blue states in total cases per capita by around July 28th (the swing states will collectively do so a few days earlier).
UPDATE: A week ago I figured the swing states would equal the blue states first, and that the red states wouldn’t equal the blue states until July 28th. Today I think they’re gonna hit on the same day...and that day will likely be July 25th.
Of course, some states are way ahead of the pack. Here’s a graph showing the spread per capita over time across just 9 states:
- 3 blue (New York, New Jersey & California)
- 2 traditional swing states (Michigan & Florida)
- 2 “new” swing states (Arizona & Georgia)
- 2 red states (Louisiana & Texas)
Arizona and Louisiana appear to be in a race to see which one can take the Top Spot from New York in cases per capita. I figure one of them will “succeed” at this within 3 days.
Michigan, meanwhile, has gone from being in the top 5 in early April to 30th as of today.
UPDATE: For those wondering, most of my data comes from the COVID-19 Data Repository by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.