Covid’s deadly trade-offs, by the numbers: How each state has fared in the pandemic
POLITICO’s State Pandemic Scorecard shows how state decisions impacted lives, jobs, education and social well-being.
From the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the toughest decisions about how to combat the virus fell on state leaders. Which businesses should stay open and which should shut their doors? Should schools close and for how long? Should masks be mandated?
The answers weren’t obvious. State officials had limited information about the virus, and the trade-offs were difficult. Protect residents’ health and instruct them to stay home – but risk driving companies out of business and accelerating unemployment. Keep businesses open – but risk a rise in hospitalizations and deaths. Close schools to control spread – but risk damaging kids’ education.
There was no optimal way to make those choices, and we’re still debating them. But nearly two years after the first cases of Covid-19 were detected in the United States, we are beginning to get enough data to start assessing the implications of those policy choices.
POLITICO’s State Pandemic Scorecard pulls together what we know so far about how states fared during the pandemic, and how the choices each made impacted its residents, businesses and schools. The scorecard groups available data for policy outcomes into four categories — health, economy, social well-being and education — and generates scores in each area between zero and 100.
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37859 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
I expected Florida to be even lower on the Health axis. I wonder how the number is calculated... if a bunch of college kids go down for spring break, then start showing symptoms after they get back to Boston or wherever, are they counted as Florida cases or Massachusetts cases?
For a lot of 2020, Florida had the first or second highest rate of infection of any state. And it's a BIG state.
It’s not over, of course. This is just a glance back at how things were handled up to now.
-------------------------------- “It's hard to win an argument with a smart person. It's damn near impossible to win an argument with a stupid person." -- Bill Murray
Posts: 13806 | Location: The outer burrows | Registered: 27 April 2005
I accidentally left out the "has" so my thread title says "fared".
The article says "has fared".
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37859 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
