THE FOCUS: OUR EDITORIAL
The States of COVID-19
The Blue States Are Not Served Well By Their Governments
Cases
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About 67% of the total cases were in the top 15 states and 54% in the top 10 states.
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The bottom 10 and 15 states only have 2.1% and 4.0% of the total nationwide cases, respectively.
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Adjusting to population, cases per 1M population in the top 10 and bottom 10 states were around 79.6K and 57.2K, respectively.
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Deaths
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Almost 60% of the total deaths were in the top 10 states; 71% of the totals were in the top 15 states.
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The bottom 10 and 15 states only have 1.8% and 3.8% of the total nationwide deaths, respectively.
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Adjusting to population, cases per 1M population in the top 10 and bottom 10 states were around 1342 and 800, respectively.
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Indicators
Infection rates in the top 10 and bottom 10 states are 7.96 and 5.72, respectively; mortality rates 0.13% and 0.08%; case fatality rates 1.69% and 1.4%, respectively.
Blue States vs Red States
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Most COVID deaths occurred in democratic states. Of the top 10 states, seven are blue states. Overall, using the 2020 presidential election results (assuming fraud did not occur), 54% of the COVID cases and 60% of deaths occurred in 26 of the blue states. Hence, blue states disproportionally have a higher percentage of deaths. One may argue that the numbers are misleading since they are not adjusted to population size. Well, the numbers widely reported on the media and repeated by politicians are always the non-adjusted ones. Even after adjusted to population, the disproportion still exists. Death per 1 million population in blue states is 1,390, while in red states 1,218.
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Economic Impact
Interestingly, democratic states are suffering the most economically. We measure economic suffering from the change in the unemployment rates from 2019 to 2020. Out of the worst 10 states, 9 of them are blue states. Hawaii is the worst, followed by Colorado.​
We compare the data with the best performing economically. The results are just the opposite. Out of the best 10 states, 9 of them are red states, where South Dakota and Alaska are the top two. The last columns in both tables show the mortality rate. The average of mortality rates in the worst performers is not different from the best ones. In fact, with a 0.029% mortality rate in Hawaii, the state suffers heavily with an unemployment rate increased by 6.6 percent points. This is in contrast with South Dakota that has a 0.2% mortality rate and yet the unemployment rate decreased by 0.3 percent point from 2019.
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Judging from these data, unless there have been some problems with economic fundamentals in each of the blue states prior to COVID-19, the states are not served by their governments in respond to the coronavirus spread.
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