There are stark differences between how the governors of Washington and Florida have managed the Covid-19 pandemic in their respective states.
Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA) has followed CDC guidelines and imposed mandates; Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has taken a laissez-faire approach and banned mandates. In Seattle, people are careful about exposure and wear masks in public; in Tampa, maskless people freely mingled (see story here). Has it made a difference? Have Washingtonians been rewarded for their trouble with fewer infections and deaths?
Yes. Their caution and compliance has paid off in a big way, while the Florida governor’s policies have put Florida’s residents and visitors in danger.
To determine this, I calculated the percentage of each state’s population that has been infected, and has died, using data from here (Washington) and here (Florida), and came up with the following:
- Washington: 16.80% of population infected, 0.139% have died
- Florida: 25.45% of population infected, 0.302% have died
Clearly, you’re much safer in Washington than you would be in Florida.
(Note: My calculations are based on reported data. If Gov. DeSantis has manipulated Florida’s data, and there’s evidence he has — for example, by not counting out-of-state visitors who get infected in Florida — the numbers for his state may be much worse.)
Then, to figure out how many lives would have been saved if their Republican governor had followed the same protocols as Washington’s Democratic governor, I multiplied Florida’s population by Washington’s death rate and subtracted that number from Florida’s actual death rate (again using reported data that may lowball Florida’s results). The result is that 35,049 lives lost in Florida arguably would have been saved if that state had been as careful about Covid-19 as Washington has been.
Of course, there could be other variables that contributed to Florida’s infections and deaths. But it does seem very likely that Gov. DeSantis’s policies of brushing off Covid-19’s dangers, keeping businesses open no matter what, and fighting vaccine and mask mandates has cost thousands of lives in his state.
Perpahs we should think of those unfortunate victims as human sacrifices to his notion of “freedom,” a word he frequently uses to describe his Covid-19 policies, because practically speaking that’s what they are. And now he wants to be president and inflict his policies on the entire nation.
Would you vote for that?