If you re-read my post above though, I'm not saying they're symmetrical. But to me it's striking that one state put in severe restrictions on business/etc for over a year, and the other state just pretended there was no pandemic, and yet California's did not even halve the case/death rates compared to Florida (per capita).

So the question California dares not ask itself is: were all the restrictions actually necessary? Maybe small businesses could have been allowed to open sooner with a mask + ventilation requirement, for example. Or maybe a single, uniform policy did not make sense for the enormously-varied state. But you can't ask those questions.

If you look at California on a county-by-county basis the restrictions definitely did halve the death rate (and beyond). The counties in California that behaved more like Florida were rewarded with a great deal more death. San Francisco, which had not only tough restrictions but high compliance, had the lowest Covid-19 death rate of any metro in the country.

What do you think pays for welfare, healthcare, food? The Grenadier Guard?

Most people talk about excessive deaths, but nobody talks about a reduction of births.

How many children were never conceived since their parents were out of work, or unsure about the future?

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.

Moved on what?

FL had record breaking deaths 2 months ago.

Moved on from restrictions. Accepted that Covid is never going away and putting life on hold isn't a good trade off.