Nearly a year after California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the nation’s first statewide unemployment due to coronavirus, masks remain mandatory, indoor food and other activities are significantly limited, and Disneyland remains closed.
By contrast, Florida has no statewide restrictions. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has banned municipalities from fining people who refuse to wear masks. And Disney World has been open since July.
Despite their different approaches, California and Florida have experienced almost identical results in COVID-19 case rates.
How have two states that adopted such divergent shots reached similar points?
“This will be an important question we need to ask ourselves: which public health measures were the most impactful, and which had a negligible effect or were counteracted to drive the behavior underground?” Said Amesh Adalja, a scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
Although research has found that mask the mandates and limits of group activities, such as eating out, can help curb the spread of the coronavirus, states with greater government-imposed restrictions have not always been better than those without.
California and Florida have a COVID-19 case rate of about 8,900 per 100,000 residents since the pandemic began, according to the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And both are halfway between states for COVID-19 mortality rates: Florida was 27th as of Friday; California was 28th.
Connecticut and South Dakota are another example. Both are among the ten worst states in terms of mortality rates for COVID-19. Still, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, has imposed numerous statewide restrictions over the past year after a first increase in deaths, while South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem , a Republican, did not issue warrants, as virus deaths skyrocketed in the fall.
Although Lamont ordered quarantines for certain out-of-state visitors, Noem launched a $ 5 million tourist advertising campaign and welcomed a massive concentration of motorcycles, which some health experts said they spread the coronavirus. throughout the Midwest.
They both argue that their approach is the best.
“Even in a pandemic, public health policy must take into account the economic and social well-being of people,” Noem said during a recent conservative convention.
Lamont recently announced that it is raising capacity limits at retail stores, restaurants and other facilities, starting March 19th. But non-food bars will remain closed and the mask mandate will continue.
“It’s not Texas. This is not Mississippi. That’s Connecticut, ”Lamont said, referring to other states that recently lifted mask mandates.
“We’re finding what works is wearing the mask, social distancing and vaccines,” he said.
As new cases of COVID-19 decrease nationwide, governors in more than half of states have taken action in the past two weeks to end or alleviate coronavirus restrictions, according to an Associated Press account. Some capacity limits ended Friday in Maryland and Oklahoma. Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York and Wyoming are relaxing restrictions next week.
In almost all cases, governors have praised their approach to the pandemic, while critics have accused them of being too strict or too lax.
The slow reopening of California is expected to gain strength in April. But California Republicans are helping organize a withdrawal effort against Newsom that has garnered nearly 2 million petition signatures from people frustrated by their enduring boundaries in business, church meetings and people’s activities. It also faces intense pressure on public school closures and the icy pace of opening them.
Newson claimed that California has been a leader in the fight against the virus while delivering his state of the art address. this past week from Dodger Stadium, where empty seats equaled approximately 55,000 deaths in the state by COVID-19.
“From the early days of this pandemic, California relied on science and data, and we knew the timing,” Newsom said.
He added: “We will not change course just because of some followers and convicts.”
At his own state address, DeSantis stated that Florida was in better shape than others because their businesses and schools are open. Florida’s unemployment rate was below the national average and significantly lower than California’s earlier this year.
“While so many other states continued to shut down people during those months, Florida lifted people up,” DeSantis said.
Determining which approach is better is more complicated than looking only at state-level policies and general case indices.
Like Florida, Missouri had no state mask mandate, ended business restrictions last June and has a cumulative COVID-19 mortality rate similar to that of California. In the absence of statewide orders, many of the largest cities in Florida and Missouri imposed their own mask requirements and trade restrictions. In Missouri, this meant that about half the population was still subject to mask warrants.
Republican Gov. Mike Parson has announced a “balanced approach” to the pandemic that has left many public health decisions to local officials and allowed the Missouri economy to “get strong.” Parson said last week that new cases of COVID-19 and unemployment are low and consumer spending has returned to pre-pandemic levels.
State Health Director Randall Williams believes residents responded to Parson’s call to voluntarily mask himself when Missouri coronavirus cases rose last fall to some of the highest levels nationwide.
Public health experts said individual elections could help explain similar results between some states with strict or strict orders from the governor.
Some people voluntarily “were more vigilant in states where the guidelines are more relaxed,” said Thomas Tsai, an assistant professor at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. However, in states with more government mandates, “people generally wore masks and followed guidelines, but in private they let go of the guard and were less vigilant,” he said.
Imposing strict measures, such as banning families from visiting grandparents and friends from meeting, is like taking an exclusive approach to abstinence to combat drug use and sexually transmitted diseases, said Adalja of Johns Hopkins University.
Some will comply. But others “people will do these activities, anyway,” he said.
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David A. Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri. Associated Press writers Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee, Florida; Stephen Groves in Pierre, South Dakota; Susan Haigh in Norwich, Connecticut; and Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, California, contributed to this story.