What part of the chart are you looking at to

Posted on: May 13, 2021 at 13:36:24 CT

make that conclusion?

When I look at that chart, I see a huge spike in NY before we even knew what we were dealing with. And then after we knew what we were dealing with, a slightly better job by the blue states.

All that said, it's an imperfect chart. Some red states have managed this well. Some blue states have not. And some red states and blue states have gotten lucky or unlucky. If this pandemic has shown anything it's that it's very prone to pouncing on a particular place with a bad outbreak while leaving others alone. Many countries or states have had long stretches of success, only to see large outbreaks now. California has the lowest case rate and death rate per capital in the US and one of the lowest in the world, and yet, with similar policies, had a fairly severe outbreak months ago. I don't think anyone can look at India, Brasil or even New York and say this thing isn't seriously dangerous. Heck, the seasonal flu was almost non-existent last year and we still lost half a million people to Covid (many estimates push that actually closer to a million).

If I were a republican, rather than saying "see, this wasn't so dangerous after all" I would say we've tried to walk a line to balance safety with well being, and we think we've done that well. Our economies are doing better and our case rates are only slightly higher than places that have completely locked down and harmed people's quality of life.