The Pandemic’s Toll in California and Florida Revisited

Trading off saving lives for preserving jobs

A string of media stories last spring offered a glittery comparison of the pandemic’s impact on California and Florida. Officials in red-leaning Florida gloated that their state sustained comparable rates of COVID infection and mortality as in blue California, despite having much more relaxed policies and taking a much smaller hit to their economy.

What gives? As I explained in my review of that debate, it can be misleading to draw conclusions from a sample of just two states, especially when they’re not broadly representative of the group they’re supposed to epitomize. As it happens, California’s caseload at the time ranked on the high side of blue states — and only slighter better than Florida’s, which was below average for red states. We can speculate why, but we now know that last year’s figures were a temporary aberration.

Read my analysis in Politically Speaking on Medium here.