Grading the States on COVID response… 6 years later

 Recently, Covid came back into the news when Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky had Dr. Anthony Fauci testify before Senate panel. The panel turned out to be a farce as many people wanted to criticize how Dr. Fauci handled the pandemic. Many people took the opportunity to relitigate old grievances they had with the attempts to try and slow down the spread of the pandemic back in 2020 and Dr. Fauci has become their scapegoat. Rand Paul attacking Dr. Fauci is rich, considering that his state did almost nothing to slow down the spread of the pandemic and ended up being one of the worst states to handle it. But don’t take my word for it. The numbers back me up.

You see, during the pandemic, I was keeping a close eye on how the numbers grew of people who infected by Covid and people who ultimately died of Covid. Through some simple mathematical computations, I was able to put together formulas that helped me judge which states did very well in the pandemic and which didn’t. You might be surprised to hear how everything shaped out.

First, some facts about the pandemic in the United States… Johns Hopkins University compiled stats from each state’s health department, and made the stats public, which gave people of real time analysis of what was happening during the pandemic. From January 2020 until March 10, 2023, John Hopkins would update the stats daily. The final totals? Just over 103.8 million cases of Covid were confirmed… and about 1.124 million Americans lost their lives. In the history of pandemics in the United States, no pandemic has claimed more lives than the three years of the Covid one… Although, to be fair, the 1918 flu pandemic killed a higher percentage of the US population than this pandemic died. In terms of percentages,  about 31.6% of Americans had Covid, and .342% of all Americans died from Covid. Now, to be fair, both the number of cases and death toll from Covid was probably undercounted (I suspect the number of actual Covid cases is closer to 120 million and that the death toll was closer to 1.4 million based on excess deaths that occurred around that time), but I have to go with the numbers as they finally stood.

So how do you grade 50 states with different populations on how they handled the Covid pandemic? Because, for example, let’s say everyone in South Dakota got infected with Covid (twice) and about 5% of the population died from it. Even with those kind of numbers, one could argue that New York State was worse because their actual Covid numbers for cases and death were higher, even though only a third of the state got infected, and the death toll was under .4%. 

So, to equalize everything, the numbers that I will use for all the states are the number of cases and deaths per 100,000 people in each state. I will compare each state to the national average in the categories of number of cases for hundred thousand people, number of deaths for hundred thousand people, and the percentage of cases that ended in death. Standard deviations of all 50 states will be used in each category and the scores will be weighted on the basis of case rates (33%), death rates (50%), and percentage of cases ending in death (17%). A cumulative score will be determined ranging from 0 to 100, where zero means you did everything right and Covid didn’t exist in your state… to 100 where your state no longer exist because of Covid. Now, obviously no one has a score 0 or 100, but you might be surprised with the numbers that end up being totaled.

Here is the grading scale:

A+: score of less than 10

A: score between 10 and 20

A-: score between 20 and 25

B+: score between 25 and 30

B: score between 30 and 40

B-: score between 40 and 49

C+: score between 49 and 51

C: score between 51 and 56

C-: score between 56 and 65

D+: score between 65 and 70

D: score between 70 and 75

D-: score between 75 and 80

F: score above 80

In addition to the 50 states, Washington DC and Puerto Rico will be included in the grading scale, though not ranked.

So here we go…

A+ tier: 1. Vermont. 2. Hawaii. (Washington DC.) 3. Washington. 4. Maine.

All four of these states (plus DC) had their act together once it was clear that a pandemic was in progress. Vermont and Hawaii lost less than .15% of their population due to Covid… only one other state (and Puerto Rico) lost less than .2% of their population. Washington was an amazing story in and of itself… while it is true that the first official US death occurred in Washington state, it was able to get the initial wave under control and keep rates and death down for the rest of the time.

A tier: 5. Oregon. 6. New Hampshire.

There is nothing wrong with how these states handled Covid… They just didn’t do as well as the top four and Washington DC. Still, they did an excellent job and were well below the national average in all three categories.

A- tier: 7. Nebraska. 8. Colorado. 9. Virginia. 10. Maryland. 11. California. 12. Utah.

We finally get a couple of “Red states” on the list in Nebraska and Utah. Utah is especially noteworthy because they were the only other state besides Vermont and Hawaii to have less than 2/10 of 1% of their population die from the Covid pandemic. Their problem was that their positivity rate was well above the national average, which hurt their ranking.

Then there is the controversy: California.

People are gonna say, “Look, California had the most cases and the most deaths. How can they be ranked just outside of the top 10 states that did well in the pandemic? It’s impossible!“ yes, that’s all true… But people forget that California had the most people in their state by a wide margin over Texas. And when you break down the numbers per hundred thousand people, you discover that California was below the national average in all three categories. Their positivity rate was just below the national average, but their death rate was significantly below the national average. By the way, they’re not the only big state to have a positivity rate and death rate below the national average… And we’ll get to that state shortly.

B+ tier: (Puerto Rico), 13. Minnesota

We’re starting to get into the states that are getting closer to the national average, and even though Minnesota’s numbers were below the national average and all three categories, their positivity rate was very close to the national average. Then there’s Puerto Rico… For much of the pandemic Puerto Rico was on par with the top 10 states. Then, the omicron variant struck, and Puerto Rico’s positivity numbers spiked badly. It’s a shame, because they were doing so well handling the pandemic.

B tier: 14: Idaho. 15. North Carolina. 16. Alaska. 17. Texas. 18. Wisconsin.

This tier focuses on states that didn’t do wonderful against Covid, but still did well enough. Of note, Idaho is the final state in our rankings where all three categories of measurements were below the national average. Also, despite the fact that Alaska had one of the highest positivity rates of Covid during the pandemic, their death rate was well below the national average and their percent of cases ending in death was the lowest in the country as they just edged out Hawaii. 

Then there is Texas. Somehow, they did a good job at keeping the pandemic from getting too out of hand… Even when weather conspired against them. Even though the percent of cases ending in death was slightly above the national average, Gov. Abbott deserves a lot of credit and should be hailed as the red state hero of the pandemic… Instead of the one who was hailed who ended up doing a disastrous job in the end… But we’ll get to that later.

B- tier: 19. Connecticut. 20. Iowa. 21. Illinois. 22. Montana.

These are the states that did OK, but not great in the pandemic. Connecticut was one of the three states in the NYC area, which was the epicenter of the first wave in the Spring of 2020. They did make a good recovery… Although their death rate and percent of cases ending in death ended up well above the national average, largely due to that first wave. Montana is also of note here because their death rate was exactly the same as the national average… It was just that the positivity rate was below the national average just enough to keep them under a score of 50.

C+ tier: 23. Ohio

If I was forced to pick one state that I thought would have the closest score to the national average at the start of the pandemic, I would’ve picked Ohio without hesitation. My family is from there, I visited all parts of the state, I know it’s people well enough. They’re good people, even if they are stubborn at times. I wish they could’ve done better than the average, but at least they did much better than their neighbors. For better or worse, never change Ohio.

C tier: 24. Wyoming. 25. Kansas. 26. Missouri. 27. North Dakota. 28. Delaware. 29. Massachusetts. 30. South Dakota.

Now we are starting to get into the states that have problems. For most of the states that are listed in the C tier, the Covid problems were mostly in the rural areas of those states… Which unfortunately was a dominant theme in this pandemic. The urban areas might’ve had the higher case and death numbers, but it was the rural areas where the case rates and death rates, were tragically higher… and those numbers did add up. Also of note is the fact that Massachusetts was the first state that did worse than the national average in all three categories. They were slightly above the national averages in all three cases, but they were still above it. Delaware is also of note because they were the last state ranked whose percentage of deaths due to Covid was below the national average.

C- tier: 31. Pennsylvania. 32. Nevada. 33. Georgia. 34. Indiana.

There is a common thread in the C- tier of states… All four of these states had positivity rates below the national average. However, the percent of people who died in the states from Covid was well above the national average… So the percent of cases that ended in death were among the worst scores that we saw. 

And it hurts me personally because Georgia was one of those four states. It turns out that .4% of the population of Georgia died in the pandemic and the percent of Covid cases that ended in death was the third worst in the country (Pennsylvania, actually had the worst number). Georgia should’ve done better, but they didn’t… And blaming somebody in Washington DC does not absolve Georgia of the fact that the medical community, particularly in rural Georgia, had issues. The real Covid devastation in Georgia was in those rural areas. The five county immediate Atlanta area has 33% of the population… But only 20% of the COVID deaths in Georgia occurred in Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett, and Rockdale counties. The one silver lining in Georgia’s Covid performance? All but one of their neighbors did worse against Covid. In fact, most of the southeastern states did even worse against Covid than Georgia.

D+ tier: 35. Rhode Island. 36. South Carolina. 37. Michigan.

Poor efforts against Covid by each of these three states… But the noteworthy one is Rhode Island. They had the highest percentage of positive cases in the 50 states… Most of that came from people who lived in New York City and had second homes in Rhode Island. When the initial wave hit the NYC area in the spring of 2020, many New Yorkers fled to Rhode Island… Unaware they were carrying the virus into that state. Rhode Island never really recovered from that. Michigan is also the last state whose positivity rate was below the national average… but the percent of cases ending in death was among the worst in the country.

D tier: 38. New York. 39. Louisiana. 40. New Jersey. 41. New Mexico…

There are actually five states in D tier… but I will get to that fifth state shortly. For three of these four states, they were massively impacted by the first wave of Covid in the spring of 2020. New York City and Mardi Gras in New Orleans were two ground zeros for super spreader cases. While New York, New Jersey, and Louisiana never truly recovered from those first outbreaks, they did not do as bad in later waves compared to the states that were ranked lower on this list. Unfortunately, we didn’t heed the lessons learned from the first wave. Had we done so, those three states would’ve been the bottom three. Which leads me to… 

Florida (42.)

Where do I even begin with Florida? Right off the bat, Gov. Ron DeSantis made the decision to effectively ban people coming from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut from entering the state. It smelled of a political stunt, but it actually made sense at the time. DeSantis would be one of the first states to reopen after the initial national lockdown in spring of 2020. Media people praised his decisions, while others were worried that he was being reckless in reopening too soon… And despite an initial spiking numbers, the strategy of DeSantis seem to be working well into the fall of 2020. Even without brakes in Florida in the winner of 2020–21, Florida was still doing pretty well compared with most states. When the vaccines started to become available, Florida was in position to come out of the pandemic in great shape.

Instead, Florida went Leeroy Jenkins. They began to discourage people from getting vaccinated. They even began to pass ordinances that banned counties from issuing mask mandates.

Then, the Delta variant hit.

The way of Covid wave worked was as follows… First, you would see a detection of it in wastewater. Then a week or two later, the positive test cases would show up and begin to rise. Two weeks after that, the hospitalizations would begin to occur. Then two weeks after that, the death toll would begin to climb.

As the Delta variant began to go through Florida, state health officials decided to try and conceal the numbers by not reporting them on a daily basis. First, they went to once a week. Then they went to once every other week. Masking was often discouraged. That was dangerous because people were basically flying blind. So they didn’t realize the danger until it was well too late. The summer of 2021 was devastating to the people of Florida. It didn’t get much better when the omicron variant hit. The numbers continue to climb at all levels, and by the time the pandemic was declared over, Florida had done worse versus Covid than New York had done… In every single measurable category. But, Ron DeSantis was considered a hero to the anti-VAX anti-masking coalitions. And the worst part about Florida is that, the way they reported the cases. You begin to wonder if Florida was concealing additional Covid cases and Covid deaths. If someone put a gun to my head and said they would kill me if I didn’t correctly name a state where the death toll from Covid was much higher than the official count, I think I’d be safe by naming Florida as one of those states.

Now Florida has started discouraging other vaccines, such as measles, polio, flu, etc. And diseases that were once declared gone forever or so rare they might as well be extinct have started to make comeback in the sunshine state. Leprosy is growing in Florida, for example. Instead of trying to do the right thing and educate the people, Florida is slowly becoming a disease Petri dish. History will eventually remember Florida failures… It just may not happen in the immediate future.

D- tier: 43. Kentucky. 44. Alabama. 45. Arkansas. 46. Oklahoma

These states did very little to protect their populations after the initial wave and it showed. 

Rand Paul represents the state of Kentucky, which basically allowed a free-for-all during Covid. So I find it rich that he blames Dr. Fauci for Covid when he did nothing to try and stop Covid from devastating particularly the rural areas of Kentucky. The only salvation for Kentucky was the percent of cases ending in death ended up being below the national average. Then there’s Oklahoma. I know the numbers show it, but for the life of me, I cannot understand how Oklahoma ended up this high given that they had the second highest death rate and the second highest percent of cases ending in death from Covid in the entire country. But, that’s just the way the math works.

F tier: 47. Mississippi. 48. Tennessee. 49. Arizona. 50. West Virginia.

The worst of the worst states. Just a complete failure by all four states… Particularly Tennessee and West Virginia. Arizona may have had the highest percent of cases ending in death in the country, but just the fact that neither Tennessee nor West Virginia really cared… Those two states should also be studied besides Florida on how not to handle the pandemic.

And that’s the way it goes. I am happy to add the spreadsheet to back up the grades.

The Twilight of Hyper Patriotism

The era of Hyper Patriotism in our country is fading into History… and that may or may not be a good thing.

For much of the 21st-century, Hyper Patriotism has been a dominant theme in our national discourse. 

What is Hyper Patriotism you might ask? From online definitions, “Hyperpatriotism is an extreme, unquestioning devotion to one's country, often characterized by fanatical pride and the belief in the nation's absolute superiority. It tends to demand blind loyalty to the state, prioritizing national self-interest over universal ethical standards. Philosophical and political discussions emphasize that Hyper Patriotism significantly differs from healthy patriotism. While a traditional patriot may question the government to protect the country's core (democratic) values, a hyperpatriot views dissent as disloyalty and opposes accountability. The concept closely overlaps with jingoism and ultranationalism, and it frequently manifests as an aggressive hostility toward other nations or marginalized domestic groups.”

To understand how we got to this point of Hyper Patriotism, we must go back to a time where pride in our country was at a nadir. In the latter half of the Vietnam war, our country was divided among those who opposed the war and those who supported our troops. When the war ended in 1975, many returning soldiers faced open hostilities as they attempted to return to normal life. While there was a brief respite of renewed patriotism in 1976 as our country celebrated its bicentennial birthday, the feeling slipped away once the calendar turned to 1977. And, for the rest of the 1970s and into the 1980s, pride in our country was at a low. To be sure, there were brief moments of joy and celebration when something good would happen to our country. However, it was very noticeable on special holidays when my parents brought out the American flag and we would be one of the few in the neighborhood to do that.

In the early 1990s, with the first war in Iraq ending in a decisive victory coupled with the fall of the Soviet Union as well as the communist governments in eastern Europe, we seemed to get our patriotic swagger back. Even so, it was a kind of patriotism that was tempered with wanting to be a better country for all of our citizens. Throughout the 90s, we debated about our responsibilities as the lone standing superpower. As we approached the term of the millennium, we were still struggling with the questions.

One event changed the whole dynamic: 9/11.

After the events of that terrible September morning, seeing the Red White & Blue surged almost immediately. Everybody started to fly the flag at all times. We had car flags… Some of us had multiple on our vehicles. We paid homage to the policeman, the fireman, and the soldiers. We wanted vengeance and to settle the scores with those who we deemed our enemies.

But there was a dark side to our thirst in avenging the 3000 lives that were lost on 9/11. We began to do things that crossed the line into torture and abuse. Abu Ghraib ring a bell for anyone? We thought we had won the wars until hotspots began to show up. Those who began to question what we were doing were ostracized. Remember The (Dixie) Chicks? Ironic, considering that country music often talked less about our nation & more about personal struggles in the 1970s, 1980s, & 1990s… then 9/11 happened, and it turned Super Patriotic.

When we finally did remove the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks of September 11, I began to think that maybe we were starting to return to a sense of normality. I was wrong. It seemed like we continued to move on with ever increasing patriotic feelings that began to turn nationalistic. We began to start treating others who would come into our country as hostile. It didn’t matter if they were looking for a better life, they were not welcomed here.

It only continued to accelerate throughout the last decade. People wanted us to remember those who had given their lives and service to our country on every national holiday. We were told to never forget what happened on September 11. Then, we started to go after people who knelt during our national anthem… Or who wouldn’t put their hand over their heart… Or wouldn’t even sing along with our national anthem. We started asking that the national anthem be played at more and more things. Is it really necessary to play the national anthem before you shoot off fireworks or before a wedding? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing to play the national anthem to honor our country, but there is such a thing as overdoing it.

There’s something else I wanna point out. You may not like what I’m about to say, but I’m not wrong here. About 80% of this era of Hyper Patriotism is basically performance. All you have to do is look at houses that have faded US flags on them. Owners put up the flags to show that they’re proud of their country, and they leave it up there. They don’t understand that you are supposed to put the flag up in the morning and take it down at night and not fly it in the rain. You wanna show your pride in our country but you also need to protect the flag from the elements of wear and tear. The ravages of time cause the flag to fade. Sometimes those flags are even taken down by storms. Instead of retiring that flag and disposing of it in a respectful manner, many of these people just put the flag back up.

Or how about Memorial Day memes and posts about honoring those who have given their lives and service to our country. There’s nothing wrong with doing that, but many of the people who post this think that that is good enough for them to then go to the beach or to the lake or to the mountains. They figured they did their honoring in their post and not do anything like actually going to a memorial or a cemetery to honor those who fought and died for our country. Many of these people also do similar posts on the Fourth of July. Again, there is nothing wrong with that, but if you think that’s all you need to do to honor our country, then you are mistaken. Real devotion to this country and honor of this country requires more than just paying lip service so you can avoid being harassed by the “patriot police”.

See, when I choose to honor this country, I take many steps to prove it. When I fly the flag, it is on certain special days, like Memorial Day weekend, the Fourth of July weekend, Presidents’ Day, Veterans Day, and a few other national holidays. I put the flag up in the morning and take it down at night. I also do not fly the flag when there is weather. Amazingly, my flag still looks pretty good even after owning it for well over 15 years, but I do my best to honor the flag by taking care of it. It’s something I learned from my dad.

There’s more… When I choose to honor those who have given their lives and service to our country, it’s more than just me posting quaint words on social media. It’s wearing Poppy pins on Memorial Day weekend as a symbol of those who gave all. It’s actually taking time out of Memorial Day weekend to go to memorials or to national cemeteries to pay our respects to the fallen. A lot of the lessons that I learned came from personal experiences in my travels around the globe and seeing how other nations honor their soldiers who fought and died for their country.

With this year being the 250th birthday of our country, I also decided to step up and show my patriotic pride and wear unique red white and blue outfits. I know the times are tough, but if I can do something to highlight patriotic pride & give encouragement in these times, I’m willing to help out. But it also means that I have to be critical when things aren’t going well. See, that is an aspect of being a patriot to our country I’ve also learned these lessons over the years from friends and family.

I was very interested to see how people would treat Memorial Day and the 250th anniversary of the Fourth of July this year. To be honest, there was little activity on my social media feeds over Memorial Day weekend, even by those who are veterans or married to soldiers. July 4th was even worse. A few posts that I saw recognizing the anniversary of our nation’s independence was mostly AI generated. Now, I understand that life gets in the way of many things, but given how people have acted over the years, you would’ve thought there would’ve been more effort to celebrating the Fourth of July and remembering Memorial Day especially this year. Was I disappointed by the lack of effort? I was. Was I surprised by it? Not at all.

Reasons like what I just stated above are why I believe the era of hyper patriotism in our land is in its twilight stages. It just feels like anybody who is celebrating is going through the motions right now. it didn’t seem like anybody really wanted to put their heart into doing things. They decided to take the easy way out. Take that as you see it.

In just a few short weeks, we will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the event that began this era of hyper patriotism… 9/11. Once again, many people will do the same thing that they have done on social media over the last several years… They will copy a picture of either the firefighters raising the flag on 9/11 or what the towers looked like on 9/10. They will pretend that they haven’t forgotten about that day. Here’s my problem, though… you’ve had 25 years to go and pay your respects to those who lost their lives on that terrible morning and yet you haven’t. Why? 

I’ve always appreciated those who have posted their own pictures of either what the towers looked like before the fall or of one of the memorials that honor those who lost their lives on that day. How many of you have seen the lights emanating from where the towers stood? Or have visited the WTC memorial in lower Manhattan? Or have visited the flight 93 memorial in Shanksville? It’s one thing to copy pictures off of the Internet… It’s another to share your memories from the towers before they fell or visit the memorials that have come up since.

So what ends up replacing the era of hyper patriotism? Well, that answer is not so simple because there are two options in terms of how this goes that are very likely, and a third that is far less likely. You see, the enemy of any era is the one thing that no one can control… Time. The further away you are from a moment, the less and less you care about it, unless you were personally involved in the moment. Eventually, other things get in the way, and you either (1) tend to forget or (2) force yourself to remember in such a way that you lose the meaning of why you’re doing it. 

The first option will eventually lead to a gradual decline of patriotism, and showing off our pride. Many don’t want to admit it, but the patriotic burnout is real, and if not addressed soon, it will lead to a malaise where people wonder why we’re going through the motions of displaying our pride it in the first place. The second option gives rise to a kind of nationalism where we are obligated to force ourselves to honor the country, even when we’re doing things wrong. That is an even more dangerous path than option 1, but I see evidence every day that many people want to go down that way.

The longshot scenario is actually the one I am hoping for… Because I don’t wanna see a lack of passion of caring about our country, but I also don’t wanna see us praise our country at all times without proper criticism. Proper criticism is actually healthy for our country in that it focuses us to try and be a more perfect union. It means holding ourselves responsible in trying to be a shining beacon for the rest of the world. We haven’t been doing a good job with that over the last 25 years. And unfortunately, time is running out…

If another national tragedy happens to our country right now, I don’t think the entire nation will rally together. We are too divided. Nearly half of the country would immediately be suspicious of whether the event actually happened. Our best chance is to have a genuine national dialogue where we’re not calling each other names… Where we’re willing to admit our own fallacies, as well as offering legitimate solutions to what is wrong. We have to reengage the true patriots and seek wisdom from those who have experience.

In closing, I do believe in our country. I believe in the liberty AND justice FOR ALL espoused in the pledge of allegiance. Throughout our 250 year history, we have worked to be a better nation. Let us engage in the great conversation needed to help keep this country moving forward.