Over a million Americans have died from COVID. Hundreds more still die weekly. Which states did better?
"DeSantis fired back at Trump after he argued former NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo handled the COVID-19 pandemic better than DeSantis did." - NY Post
Check the facts. How did your community fare? How well did your Governor perform in responding to COVID? Check for yourself on this map with data from the John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. (The maps also show the infection and death rate as a percentage of the total population so you can better compare different states.)
- How many people in your county got COVID?
- How many died?
- Which states dealt best with the pandemic?
How well did your Governor respond to the pandemic?
Manipulating data to justify an anti-vaccine agenda
"DeSantis has transformed himself into the face of an anti-“woke,” anti-public health movement that blossomed during the pandemic — the leader of an administration that was willing to not only defy the public health consensus but to control and manipulate information in order to advance its narrative of a crisis that has killed more than 1.1 million Americans, including more than 87,000 Floridians.
Within a month of pleading with Floridians to remain socially distant, DeSantis had begun to reopen the state’s economy. As months went by, he became more brazen in his willingness to bend the truth around Covid and staffed his administration accordingly. Within a year, he had hired a Covid vaccine skeptic as his surgeon general, who would later be accused of altering study data to advance that agenda, and was fighting cruise ships over their plans to impose vaccine mandates for their passengers." - VOX
Covid vaccine skeptic as his surgeon general
About 180 Floridians were dying every day
"Public health experts believe DeSantis’s approach probably made things worse. His state did see a faster economic recovery than many others, but it came with a cost: Florida ranks 13th among states in deaths per capita... the governor’s modus operandi has been to take whatever the dominant conservative issue and position is at a given time and embrace it. His pandemic record is the most striking example of DeSantis’s chameleon-like political persona.
On May 1, the state began reopening. Restaurants could resume operations at limited capacity. Hospitals began conducting elective surgeries again. Over the rest of the month, restaurants were allowed to expand their capacity, and other businesses, such as gyms, were permitted to reopen. In early June, theme parks — a major source of tourism in the state — and bars started to reopen, too.
... coronavirus infections in Florida exploded in June and July, as the daily average of new cases rose from less than 1,000 on June 1 to a peak of nearly 11,900 by the middle of July. About 180 Floridians were dying every day as the calendar turned from July to August.
DeSantis’s response to his state’s rise in cases and deaths was limited. He resisted calls to require masks in public spaces. He cited younger people as the major drivers of spread, and while he did warn again that younger people could spread the virus to others, he was more fatalistic about the government’s ability to influence their behavior. “They’re going to do what they’re going to do,” he said on June 28." - VOX
States such as Texas, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi that have not expanded Medicaid have the largest relative percentage of uninsured residents in the country. In some Republican-led states that did opt for Medicaid expansion, it was adopted with new restrictions. This has ultimately led to worse outcomes." - The Conversation
John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center
The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center (CRC) continuously updated COVID-19 data and expert guidance till March 2023. It collected and analyzed the best data available on cases, deaths, tests, hospitalizations, and vaccines to help the public, policymakers, and healthcare professionals worldwide respond to the pandemic. TIME recognized the CRC as the “go-to data source” for COVID-19 and named it to the Top 100 Inventions of 2020. In 2021, Research!America named the CRC a recipient of its “Meeting the Moment for Public Health” award. The CRC is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
TakeAway: Check the facts and hold politicians accountable for their decisions. Your life may just depend on it.
Deepak
DemLabs
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