Remember that Florida has a significantly older population than California too. 2.1% of the population >85 years old vs 1.3%; 17.6% over 65 years old vs 10.6%. COVID deaths are very concentrated in the elderly. The CDC estimates that the 85+ age group has a 8700x higher chance an infection leading to death, and a 95x higher chance of infection leading to hospitalization, than the 5-17 age group. The article appears to be using non-age-adjusted excess deaths. So California and Florida being equal is a strong sign that California did significantly worse.
https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/florida/demographic-sta...
https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/california/demographic-...
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investi...
Miami is a small city of 500,000 people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_statistic...
...with a density of 1004 people / sq. mi., compared to the NY metro area with a density of 5313 people / sq. mi..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_metropolitan_area
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area#com...
LA has more people (13.2 million) but appears to be less densely populated with 550 people per sq mile.
I didn’t follow California but I know Florida was offered as a place that not locking down worked.
I can look into it a little more. Florida has a lot of cases, and most came after the first wave. The same with Texas.
From the WSJ on July 16th, 2020, someone trying to promote the idea that it was only a Blue state problem:
=======•••
“Here are some real numbers to put things into context, and it's obvious the problem is certain incompetent blue state governors.
As of today:
Florida (population 23M) COVID deaths: 4,782
Texas (population 30M) COVID deaths: 3,561
New York (population 19M) Covid deaths: 25,014
New Jersey (population 9M) COVID deaths: 15,665”
=====
I recently compared these numbers in early March I believe
Florida: 31,523 for 26,741 additional deaths
New Jersey: 23,521 for 7856 additional deaths
New York: 48,410 for 23,396 additional deaths
Texas: 45,274 for 41,713 additional deaths
——————-
NY: 48,410/25,014 = 1.9 times more death
FL: 31,523/4,782 = 6.5 times more death
Florida and Texas lead in deaths after the first wave
March 6, 2021
Florida: 31,523 for 26,741 additional deaths
New Jersey: 23,521 for 7856 additional deaths
New York: 48,410 for 23,396 additional deaths
Texas: 45,274 for 41,713 additional deaths
Most lockdowns are not like that, for practical reasons. They are a random basket of restrictions that go into effect when the virus has already spread enough to cause great concern. At that point, it is hard to discern whether any of these restrictions cause a significant effect, much less a net benefit.
I gave a specific example of Melbourne and I was implying a specific timeframe when their lockdown went into effect. They went from having uncontrolled community spread, with tens of thousands of infections, to actually zero. They did it by having a very detailed plan, strict enforcement, high compliance, and an excellent testing regime. They also had clear goals and thresholds for lifting restrictions and communicated them to the public.
I generally agree that ineffective lockdowns mostly just slow down the spread. The spread picks up again exactly in proportion to restrictions being lifted. However, effective lockdowns have actually been able to eradicate the virus completely from whole areas: from Melbourne, from Victoria, from all of Australia, New Zealand, and several Asian countries. You need to be able to quarantine international travel and have high compliance. The places where the virus have been eradicated have to remain on high alert and remain extremely vigilant until they can roll out mass vaccination. I spent 10 months in Australia during the pandemic, 99% of the time stuck in the ACT. The extreme vigilance was contact tracing, social distancing, and some restrictions. There wasn't a mask wearing mandate, ever, because they never allowed uncontrolled community spread.
The US and European countries cannot meet those criteria, so they have the virus simmering until they can roll out massive vaccination. The US and Europe were too slow to take the pandemic seriously because their political leaders rolled in BS and denial for months and seeded their idiot followers with denialism. It's too late for them, and the only way out is vaccination. And yet, some idiots are still rolling out conspiracy theories about vaccination and want to f** that up, too. It's so disappointing.
It seems to help to be an island country or state though, or a geographically isolated region like South Korea or Alaska, as they can screen people coming into the country and there's not a lot of cross-pollination with tight border controls.