As the covid-19 pandemic was starting to affect the US half a year ago, the idiots on the right began to politicize the issue right away. Responding to my article Mother Nature? (March 23, 2020), an anonymous reader wrote the following:
Thank you President Trump for acting rapidly in blocking European flights!”
He added: “Contrary to your assertion, the death stats show that Western Europe remains the epicenter of the Coronavirus, every other stat is just a question of who measures the most. Besides, when our summer becomes the southern hemisphere’s winter, the southern hemisphere will become the epicenter. While I recognize we all have a problem, my previous point was to show statistically that we have more competent executive branch leadership (reacting faster and minimizing loss) than the other European democracies, and that I personally am grateful that Trump is president rather than the senile idiot the democrats are about to nominate. I would also point out that while Italy by far appears to be the most incompetent and ill prepared of the European nations, at the same time New York which has almost 50% of our Corona cases is ironically led by two Italians named Cuomo and DeBlasio!"
Now for an update. I am sad to say that half a year later, anonymous turns out to be spectacularly wrong (something which most physicians and other reasonable people could have predicted). The table below provides international stats as of Sept. 26:
|
Country |
Cases per million |
Deaths per million |
|
US |
21,986 |
631 |
|
Spain |
15,723 |
668 |
|
Belgium |
9,923 |
860 |
|
Sweden |
8,990 |
581 |
|
France |
8,076 |
485 |
|
Ireland |
6,981 |
364 |
|
Netherlands |
6,336 |
371 |
|
UK |
6,316 |
617 |
|
Switzerland |
5,982 |
238 |
|
Italy |
5,098 |
238 |
|
Austria |
4,681 |
87 |
|
Denmark |
4,522 |
112 |
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
The US is clearly the champion as far as community spread is concerned. We are also among the world’s top countries in terms of deaths per million. But most people already know this. Most of us also know that much of the blame for this lies with the president and his Republican sycophants, who have pooh-poohed, mismanaged and politicized the pandemic from the get-go.
So let’s compare the spread of the disease in red states and blue states:
Of the 51 jurisdictions
(including D.C.), 23 states are
identified as red and 19 as blue (the
remainder are ambiguous):
(https://www.270towin.com/content/blue-and-red-states)
I ranked all 51 jurisdictions
in terms of cases per million, from highest to lowest. Results:
Cases per million, ranked from high to low:
Red States (23): Blue
States (19):
1. Louisiana 14.
New York
2. Florida 16
New jersey
3. Mississippi 17.
Rhode Island
4. Alabama 18.
Illinois
5. Arizona 22.
District of Columbia
6. Georgia 24.
Delaware
7. South Carolina 25.
California
8. Tennessee 27.
Maryland
10. Arkansas 30.
Wisconsin
11. North Dakota 31.
Massachusetts
12. Texas 34.
Minnesota
15. South Dakota 35.
Connecticut
19. Idaho 38.
Michigan
20. Nebraska 40
Pennsylvania
21. Utah 42.
Washington
23. Oklahoma 46
Hawaii
26. Missouri 48.
Oregon
28. Kansas 50.
Maine
36. Kentucky 51.
Vermont
43. Montana
44. Alaska
45. Wyoming
47. West Virginia
The top 8 states with the highest relative amount of infection are all red. In general, red states are doing a much worse job at controlling the pandemic Example: Republican Florida governor Ron DeSantis is re-opening all businesses, just as Florida’s counts are skyrocketing.
The Trumpites have politicized the pandemic from the start, deriding the wearing of masks, etc. And as it has been said innumerable times, the corona virus doesn’t distinguish between Democrats and Republicans.
But my point is that two can play the game. This game becomes especially heinous when people, like anonymous above, stoop to racist insults, as when he blames Italians. I don’t think Americans want to start pointing fingers at various nationalities, now that they own the plague’s epicenter, now that the table is turned and Europe no longer admits American visitors.
Do you still want to talk about “idiot Democrats” and “incompetent Italians” in Italy and “incompetent Italian-Americans” in New York?
Right now, I would much rather travel to Italy or to New York than to Texas, Florida, or any other Republican state.
Okay, so this is a tit for a tat. I am politicizing the pandemic. But hey, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
© Tom Kando 2020;All Rights Reserved
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