We now have Covid-19 deaths for the first two weeks of August. This enables us to track which states are curbing fatalities in the current period and which are failing.
Every day, Worldometers updates infections and deaths data for all US states and territories, including 7-day moving averages. We examine here the fifty states and the District of Columbia for the first two weeks in the current month.
Main takeaways at the half way mark in August:
1. The United States continues to have one of the worst-managed overall responses to the pandemic. Among all developed countries comprising the OECD, only Mexico and Chile have higher deaths per million.
2. States run by Republican governors (red states) have far worse outcomes than states run by Democratic governors (blue states). Of the 16 states with the highest deaths per million, 12 are red states and only four are blue. See graph at the top here.
3. Total deaths in the first two weeks in August came to 14,252. Six states account for more than half of these – Texas, Florida, Georgia, Arizona, South Carolina and Mississippi.
4. Several states badly affected by the pandemic in the early months are no longer among the 25 worst-hit states in August. Absent now are New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Deaths by party governorship
The 27 Republican (red) states hold 45.8 per cent of the population. The 24 Democratic (blue) states hold 54.2 per cent.
If there were no difference between state outcomes along party lines, we would expect states with Republican governors to have experienced about 45.8 per cent of all recent deaths, and states with Democratic governors about 54.2 per cent.
In fact, the Republican states have recorded 67.0 per cent and the Democratic states just 33.0 per cent.
Calculated as deaths per million population, the red states so far in August have recorded 63.6. The blue states just 26.4. The difference is a factor of 2.4. In other words, Americans in the red states have the risk of death from Covid-19 in August 2.4 times higher than those in the blue states.
Note: We are focusing on deaths over the last 14 days, as this measures the effectiveness of current strategies. It removes the early stage deaths – which were the result primarily of the location of the major international airports not closed to foreign arrivals when they should have been in February and March.
The challenge now is to determine what the Democratic administrations are doing differently today from their Republican counterparts.