BDKJMU wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 7:19 pm
JohnStOnge wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 6:58 pm
Writing with some updated numbers for those who think Florida has done a good job with COVID-19. Note that Florida's governor has appointed out of the mainstream public health officials who undermine confidence in the vaccines and has, himself, also worked to do that.
As of the day before the first COVID-19 vaccination was administered in the United States, 12/13/2020, New Jersey ranked #1 among states in cumulative COVID-19 death rate (deaths per million population) and New York ranked #2. Florida was in the middle of the pack at #20.
I checked where the three States ranked on 9/14/2022. New Jersey had dropped to #8 in cumulative COVID-19 death rate and Florida had climbed to #13. New York had fallen below Florida to #16, Also, when only the period starting with the start of vaccination (12/14/2020 - 9/14/2022) was considered, Florida climbed to #11 while New Jersey dropped to 33rd and New York dropped to 35th.
Latest update: As of the end of the day yesterday, Florida was at #10 in cumulative death rate since the beginning of the pandemic, New Jersey was at #13, and New York was at #15. And, when only the period starting with the start of vaccination in the United States was considered, Florida was at #8, New York was at #31, and New Jersey was at #37.
The point is that, since the vaccination tool became available, Florida has continued to move up the list in terms of COVID-19 mortality.
I don't think it's just the vaccine thing either. That is something that can be clearly identified. But I think Florida has generally failed to follow mainstream public health recommendations. I also think that Florida was fortunate in that it did not get hit hard with COVID-19 hard early on like New York and New Jersey did. When New York and New Jersey got hit, medical and public health officials were totally unfamiliar with the problem and there were no tools such as vaccines.
I think that, as time went on, New York and New Jersey followed mainstream recommendations while Florida did not. I think that, as a result, Florida's death rate toll now exceeds those of New York and New Jersey.I think that the perception that Ron DeSantis has done and is doing a good job with respect to COVID-19 is a false one and also a very unfortunate phenomenon.
All of the numbers I used came from
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... e_vignette .
Now adjust for age since Florida has one of the 2 or 3 oldest populations in the country..
Today I adjusted for demographic factors, including age, that are not among those related to COVID-19 interventions (such as vaccination). I adjusted for population density as reported at
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state ... -densities . I adjusted for poverty rate as reported at
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state ... e-by-state . I adjusted for age based on the statistics reported at
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state ... est-states . I adjusted for percent Black population as reported at
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state ... n-by-state . I got state by state COVID-19 death rates reported as of the end of the day yesterday (6/2/2023) from
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... e_vignette .
The end of the story is that Florida ranks worse in COVID-19 deaths than one would expect based on its demographics.
First a correlation matrix:
Coefficients highlighted yellow are signficant at
> 95% confidence for a two tailed test. Those highlighted in blue don't reach that level but are significant at
> 95% confidence for a one tailed test. One tailed tests are reasonable in this case. The only age factor that is significant either way is the percent population 75+.
Next I plugged the data into the multiple regression calculator at
https://statskingdom.com/410multi_linea ... ssion.html . I did it using % population 75+ as the indicator of population age. When I did that, whether I used two tailed tests or one tailed tests. the only two variables identified as significant at 95% confidence when other variables were accounted for were Population Density and % in Poverty. Age did not make the cut. I also did it including both median age and % population 75+ even though that is squirrelly. It didn't make a difference.
Finally, I looked at where Florida would be predicted to rank according to its demographics to where it actually ranked as of the end of the day yesterday. Florida would be predicted to rank 17th in terms of death rate according to its demographics and it's actual rank is 10th.
Since comparing Florida to New York has been popular, I'll note that New York would be ranked 9th according to its demographics and its actual rank is 15th.
So, yes, New York has done better than Florida has in terms of the death rate one would expect based on demographics as compared to the death rate observed.
I should note that I know from past analyses that percent population 65+ ( which is what I looked at in the past) does emerge as a factor if you control for vaccination rate. I think that what is going on when you do something like what I did today is that there is a very high vaccination rate among those 65+. Vaccination rates haven't been tracked as much for a while but according to the site I used in the past at
https://usafacts.org/visualizations/cov ... ker-states, more than 93% of people in the US 65+ have been fully vaccinated at least.