Objectively Looking Back at COVID Stredegies - Part 1

After the initial lockdowns from COVID, states had very different strategies to manage the risks of increased infections vs risks to the economy vs risks to mental health. Two years later, we can look back at the states and see if there were significant changes in infections and deaths from COVID. Of course, the data is flawed, as cases don't include people who didn't want to get tested and states did have differences on which deaths counted as "COVID deaths", etc. 

I choose to look at the four big states, based on size and politics. Two very liberal states and two very conservatives states. Before, I go on, it is worth noting that nobody knew at the time exactly what COVID was and what the future would hold. Nobody knows what the next variant will be or how it will impact people. However, with the miracle of retrospect, we can see who was right based on the reality that actually occurred.

Based on the charts below, it doesn't seem like the conservative states had significantly more cases of COVID or related deaths. The spike in the summer of 2021 definitely did impact Florida and Texas more than the other states, but most of the other surges didn't have a significant disparity. There are just the facts. 

Now (if have the time), we would also need to look at how the economies did in each states, as well as school closures (which have a negative impact of education, especially younger kids). We need this data (and more) to really start to access the choices, but this data was interesting to me. 

Source: https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=usa&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usfl&areasRegional=ustx&areasRegional=usca&cumulative=0&logScale=0&per100K=1&startDate=2020-06-01&values=cases



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