What California’s and Florida’s COVID-19 infection rates tell us—and don’t tell us—about the effectiveness of public health interventions

Too often the amusing anecdote or the obvious comparison are more misleading than meaningful

Ever since the widespread lockdowns last spring, there’s been pitched political debate over how much government should be doing to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. Last month several media stories comparing the COVID-19 experience in California and Florida seemed to capture the flavor of that controversy.

As it happens, the caseload in California ranks on the high side of “blue/blue” states (states that voted Democratic in 2020 and have a Democratic governor) while Florida’s caseload is below average for “red/red” (states that voted Republican in 2020 and have a Republican governor). We can speculate as to why, but neither state is typical of the red-state vs. blue-state paradigm for public health interventions.

For all the glitter of a California versus Florida comparison, it really doesn’t tell us much at all.

Read my analysis on Politically Speaking on Medium.