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And unfortunately, due to politics, we have (in the USA) half the nation thinking that the top health and government officials were/are wrong about absolutely e

And unfortunately, due to politics, we have (in the USA) half the nation thinking that the top health and government officials were/are wrong about absolutely everything (including vaccines), and the other half of the nation thinks that the top officials got everything exactly right (and refuse to question what could have been handled better). So California looks at Florida in horror, even though COVID just keeps on truckin' through Cali. And Florida screams that a mask is history's greatest threat to liberty, even though it's a plain and obvious way to reduce transmission.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> So California looks at Florida in horror, even though COVID just keeps on truckin' through Cali. California’s recent COVID death rate per 100K population is 2/3 Floridas, and the COVID incidence is concentrated in the counties with Florida-like attitudes.
- nradov 5y ago
  Now adjust for risk based on population age differences and see how the difference between states looks.
  - gowld 5y ago
    Now adjust based on vaccination status
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Now adjust for risk based on population age differences and see how the difference between states looks. About what you’d expect if the actual recent infection rates were similar after Florida's drop from its mich higher recent peak, rather than Florida's being now much lower the way the reported case rates would suggest.
labster 5y ago
There is still coronavirus in California, but mostly in the flyover counties. The high population centers are much safer.
- zinconfire 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 5y ago
    Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... Also: please make your substantive points without flamebait. Your comment here would be fine without the last sentence.
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  And if California had the same death rate as Florida, there'd be an additional 40k dead people. These things aren't remotely symmetrical and it's such a disservice to pretend like "both sides are bad".
  - refurb 5y ago
    Florida has a much older population so you’d need to adjust for that. Plus Florida has moved on since 8 months ago. No everything is measured in only covid deaths.
    - gowld 5y ago
      Moved on what? FL had record breaking deaths 2 months ago.
jquery 5y ago
> even though COVID just keeps on truckin' through Cali California’s death rate is far lower than Florida. This isn’t something you should be both-sidesing. Tens of thousands of Californians are still alive because of the measures we’ve taken. And it’s not so much horror as disgust and confusion, like seeing someone smearing feces on themselves and saying “I trolled u!!”
- khazhoux 5y ago
  Maybe I expressed myself incorrectly, because my goal wasn't to "both-sides" this. My point was that there is a complete refusal (as far as I see) to do a critical evaluation of the steps California took, to see whether they were excessive/broad (or, I suppose, too relaxed) in some circumstances. To even ask the question, as I'm doing, puts you in the false-equivalence crosshairs.
  - jquery 5y ago
    Hmm, I disagree it’s not being debated here. There’s certainly a lot of healthy debate. It just happens to be centered far more towards the “principle of boosting the disadvantaged” (so our concern over the immuno-compromised, the infirm and weak, the underprivileged, etc), whereas the debate elsewhere kind of sidelines them, or at least puts the concerns of healthy privileged people at the same level. Not sure my point is getting across. I’m not quite sure what my point is. Still trying to figure out what makes California (and especially San Francisco) different without resorting to simple left vs right language.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> So California looks at Florida in horror, even though COVID just keeps on truckin' through Cali. California’s recent COVID death rate per 100K population is 2/3 Floridas, and the COVID incidence is concentrated in the counties with Florida-like attitudes.

nradov 5y ago
Now adjust for risk based on population age differences and see how the difference between states looks.
- gowld 5y ago
  Now adjust based on vaccination status
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Now adjust for risk based on population age differences and see how the difference between states looks. About what you’d expect if the actual recent infection rates were similar after Florida's drop from its mich higher recent peak, rather than Florida's being now much lower the way the reported case rates would suggest.

labster 5y ago

There is still coronavirus in California, but mostly in the flyover counties. The high population centers are much safer.

zinconfire 5y ago
[flagged]
- dang 5y ago
  Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... Also: please make your substantive points without flamebait. Your comment here would be fine without the last sentence.
mikeyouse 5y ago
And if California had the same death rate as Florida, there'd be an additional 40k dead people. These things aren't remotely symmetrical and it's such a disservice to pretend like "both sides are bad".
- refurb 5y ago
  Florida has a much older population so you’d need to adjust for that. Plus Florida has moved on since 8 months ago. No everything is measured in only covid deaths.
  - gowld 5y ago
    Moved on what? FL had record breaking deaths 2 months ago.

jquery 5y ago

> even though COVID just keeps on truckin' through Cali California’s death rate is far lower than Florida. This isn’t something you should be both-sidesing. Tens of thousands of Californians are still alive because of the measures we’ve taken. And it’s not so much horror as disgust and confusion, like seeing someone smearing feces on themselves and saying “I trolled u!!”

khazhoux 5y ago
Maybe I expressed myself incorrectly, because my goal wasn't to "both-sides" this. My point was that there is a complete refusal (as far as I see) to do a critical evaluation of the steps California took, to see whether they were excessive/broad (or, I suppose, too relaxed) in some circumstances. To even ask the question, as I'm doing, puts you in the false-equivalence crosshairs.
- jquery 5y ago
  Hmm, I disagree it’s not being debated here. There’s certainly a lot of healthy debate. It just happens to be centered far more towards the “principle of boosting the disadvantaged” (so our concern over the immuno-compromised, the infirm and weak, the underprivileged, etc), whereas the debate elsewhere kind of sidelines them, or at least puts the concerns of healthy privileged people at the same level. Not sure my point is getting across. I’m not quite sure what my point is. Still trying to figure out what makes California (and especially San Francisco) different without resorting to simple left vs right language.