Here’s an interesting Twitter thread by a medical researcher who has crunched the numbers and compared California with Florida, both states in the southern latitudes and both with very diverse populations.
The upshot? Florida has failed. Badly. Turns out the “Let ‘er rip” policy is far worse than the “Mask-up, social distance” policy. Who woulda thunk it, huh?
For those without Tweeter:
Given COVID is now a largely vaccine-preventable disease
We can judge how well states are managing once vaccines became plentiful
So lets look at two big states: California and Florida And see what we see in the data
In a nutshell, bad news for Floridians
So why compare FL and CA? Two large states in southern half of US (less seasonal confounding), both with diverse populations
But with very different approaches
CA continues masking, testing, pushing vax
FL? Not so much.
So how have people of CA and FL done?
We could examine cases but might be affected by testing (CA does more!)
So lets focus on deaths per capita
Here are daily deaths in CA, FL
They track closely from April through mid-July
Then, FL took off while CA rose slowly
Now, per capita, FL has 6 times daily deaths of CA
Another way to look at it is to examine cumulative deaths (per capita)
To answer: what proportion of people died after vaccines were widely available?
So here is the shocker:
Nearly 3 in 10 Floridians who has died of COVID19 -- died after April 1, 2021
Only 1 in 10 in CA
In fact, cumulatively, CA and FL had similar death rates until April 2021
The states then started separating
Now, cumulative deaths 30% higher (per capita) in FL than CA
Why these differences in deaths in CA vs FL?
Its not about vaccines: 56% of CA fully vaxxed vs 53% in FL
Instead, its abrogation of other public health measures
FL banning mask mandates and doing far less testing than CA
Why? Because FL listening to @gbdeclaration "let it rip" clowns
Which has thus caused enormous, unnecessary suffering and deaths for people of Florida
Fin
So there it is. The data is irrefutable: public health measures enacted in California are SAVING LIVES while DeathSantis’ policy of “Let ‘er rip” is killing people. And Republicans are LITERALLY trying to recall Governor Newsom ostensibly because of those very same public health measures that are saving lives (though given the fact that the recall effort started in early 2019 it’s obvious that this is just a temper tantrum by Republicans who cannot handle losing).
This is the hill that DeathSantis has chosen to die upon but unfortunately he’s taking a LOT of people with him.