Governor French Laundry and Governor Science Denial are debating this evening. Let’s do a little pre-debate fact-checking. Americans have agreed that all of a society’s success can be measured by the society’s score in the COVID-19 Olympics. A society that achieved 0 COVID-tagged deaths by pushing all of its citizens into Hamas-style tunnels for 10 years (until a vaccine-style vaccine became available that definitively reduced deaths on a population-wide basis) would, for example, be celebrated as the best of all possible societies.
Lockdown-champ California starts off in the lead in the COVID-19 Olympics by having a lower COVID-19-tagged death rate. Once you adjust for the percentage of the population over 65, however, the death rates are about the same and the excess death rate may actually be higher in California (the CDC makes these data available, but somehow doesn’t bother to make it easy to compare states).
Where is SARS-CoV-2 having a field day right now? The CDC’s wastewater page:
The Science-denying Republican strongholds of Minnesota and Vermont are seriously plagued (God hates Republicans and loves #Science). California is moderately plagued and the plague level in Florida is “low”. In other words, if we accept that current Scientific dogma that humans, especially politicians and bureaucrats, are in charge of viruses, Gavin Newsom’s lockdowns, mask orders, forced vaccinations, school closures, etc. have resulted in a higher rate of SARS-CoV-2 infection than the Team Sweden approach that Ron DeSantis adopted in the summer of 2020 (see Ron DeSantis and Coronapanic for excerpts from the not-so-great man’s book).
I continue to maintain my position that Nikki Haley would be more likely to prevail over Joe Biden in November 2024 because Ron D doesn’t have the soothing optimistic tone that Americans love. For example, Americans want to believe that someone who hates Jews and loves jihad will do a 180-degree flip once exposed to suburban life in Michigan or Minnesota. Ron just says “no”:
(Possible influence for Ron D’s rejection of Immigration Dogma: Florida is where, in 2016 (prior to Ron DeSantis assuming the governorship), first-generation Afghan-American Omar Mir Seddique Mateen killed 49 people at a gay nightclub. Mr. Mateen came from a “moderate Muslim” family and had spent his entire 29-year life in the land of Diversity is Our Strength (TM).)
Loosely related:
- former West Coaster Jeff Bezos meets up with his new $500 million yacht in Florida (“Koru is followed by a $75 million support vessel, Abeona”)
- “Amazon sets sights on more Miami office space after Jeff Bezos’ Florida move” (New York Post); this seems like it could starve Washington State of expected (and well-deserved!) revenue from its new 7 percent capital gains tax. Senior and/or long-term Amazon employees can choose when to sell shares. They could move to Coral Gables or Miami Beach for a few years, sell whatever they want to sell, go to work in the Amazon Miami office, and eventually move back to Washington State if they’re keen to pay the 20 percent estate tax on death. California-based Amazon employees could skip out on 13.3 percent income tax by moving to Miami, at least during years in which they expected to cash out stock.
- Washington State’s new income tax and Florida’s new billionaire resident
- a potentially correct aggregation of the CDC data:
“Once you adjust for the percentage of the population over 65…”
Doesn’t that just leave you and your family for the Florida statistics?
Mike: It looks as though there is a lot of variation within Florida. According to the Google, Naples has a median age of 65 while Orlando’s is just 34. Jupiter supposedly has about the same percentage of under 18 and 66+ (see https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/jupitertownflorida/PST045222 ). The median in Jupiter is supposedly 46.5, older than the Florida state median of 42, but our development (Abacoa) seems to be primarily families with K-12-age kids (parents in their 30s and 40s).
See also https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/07/states-median-age-does-not-tell-whole-story.html for a county-by-county map.