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| Pic courtesy paho.org |
I have posted before about the potential for the Covid pandemic to work as a catalyst.
Apart from that potential, it also provides a snapshot of how well various communities (and societies) work in times of crisis.
An analysis of the performance of the 51 US states on their management of this major health issue provides an insight into how well they function at their most basic task, that of keeping their citizens safe, and how political values are reflected in the outcome.
The measure I will use is the Covid-19 death rate per million as published on the Worldometer website, which uses a variety of information sources to arrive at the various statistics, and is generally reliable.
Let's rank the various American states from worst to best in terms of the deaths per million as of today (29th December 2021), list the political affiliation of the governor, and then specify the vaccination rates at December 28th for each state. The first figure represents the deaths per million for that state, and the percentage represents the vaccination rate -
1. Mississippi - 3501 - Republican - 48.06%
2. Alabama - 3352 - Republican - 47.49%
3. Arizona - 3317 - Republican - 56.85%
4. New Jersey - 3256 - Democratic - 70.26%
5. Louisiana - 3222 - Democratic - 50.15%
6. New York - 3067 - Democratic - 71.53%
7. Tennessee - 3018 - Republican - 51.17%
8. Arkansas - 3014 - Republican - 51.06%
9. West Virginia - 2951 - Republican - 54.89%
10. Georgia - 2948 - Republican - 50.65%
11. Massachusetts - 2922 - Republican - 74.41%
12. Oklahoma - 2920 - Republican - 53.33%
13. Florida - 2905 - Republican - 63.11%
14. Rhode Island - 2875 - Democratic - 76.1%
15. Michigan - 2868 - Democratic - 56.59%
16. Pennsylvania - 2828 - Democratic - 63.57%
17. South Carolina - 2826 - Republican - 53.01%
18. Indiana - 2812 - Republican - 51.89%
19. South Dakota - 2790 - Republican - 56.83%
20. Montana - 2717 - Republican - 53.86%
21. New Mexico - 2754 - Democratic - 66.06%
22. Nevada - 2725 - Democratic - 56.26%
23. Kentucky - 2708 - Democratic - 54.09%
24. Wyoming - 2637 - Republican - 47.33%
25. North Dakota - 2627 - Republican - 52.38%
26. Texas - 2619 - Republican - 56.78%
27. Missouri - 2589 - Republican - 52.89%
28. Connecticut - 2546 - Democratic - 74.47%
29. Iowa - 2472 - Republican - 58.67%
30. Ohio - 2462 - Republican - 54.97%
31. Illinois - 2435 - Democratic - 64.2%
32. Kansas - 2390 - Democratic - 56.71%
33. Delaware - 2337 - Democratic - 63.96%
34. Idaho - 2313 - Republican - 46.15%
35. California - 1935 - Democratic - 65.95%
36. Maryland - 1931 - Republican - 70.2%
37. Wisconsin - 1903 - Democratic - 61.73%
38. Minnesota - 1868 - Democratic - 65.18%
39. North Carolina - 1841- Democratic - 52.38%
40. Colorado - 1817 - Democratic - 65.09%
41. Virginia - 1816 - Democratic - 67.86%
42. Nebraska - 1722 - Republican - 59.52%
43. District of Columbia - 1713 - Democratic - 67.41%
44. New Hampshire - 1423 - Republican - 67.01%
45. Oregon - 1333 - Democratic - 66.39%
46. Washington - 1294 - Democratic - 67.7%
47. Alaska - 1292 - Republican - 56.1%
48. Utah - 1177 - Republican - 58.44%
49. Maine - 1110 - Democratic - 75.56%
50. Hawaii - 764 - Democratic - 63.38%
51. Vermont - 745 - Republican - 77.29%
And, just for the hell of it, let's list the same data for the various Australian states (which, to be consistent, requires some squirrelly maths to arrive at the deaths per million figure as expressed for the USA. The figures for Tasmania, the NT, WA, SA, and Qld are comparatively meaningless, as they are projections per million for the very few deaths that have occurred in those jurisdictions. You'll note that whilst only one person has died from Covid in the NT, my data says "4". this is simply a projection based on the population of about a quarter of a million. The same mathematical contortions are employed for Tasmania. I include these figures in the same form as the US figures to provide a basis for comparison. Again, the first figure is the death rate per million, and the last the percentage of fully vaccinated individuals) -
1. Victoria - 225 - Labor - 92.4%
2. New South Wales - 80 - Coalition - 93.5%
3. ACT - 34.7 - Labor/Green - 95%
4. Tasmania - 24 - Coalition - 92.8%
5. Northern Territory - 4 - Labor - 84.1%
6. Western Australia - 3.3 - 83.4%
7. South Australia - 2.8 - Coalition - 87.7%
8. Queensland - 1.3 - Labor - 86.1%
Now, let's ask some questions.
It's up to you, gentle reader, to answer them.
1. Is there any connection between the political affiliation of the state legislature and the death rate? Of the top 10 worst performing states in the US, 7 are Republican, and 3 are Democrat. In Oz, it appears irrelevant, although Labor doesn't come up smelling of roses in Victoria.
2. Is there any connection between vaccination rates and death rates? In the US, with the exception of New Jersey and New York, the states with the highest death rates have the lowest vaccination rates.
3. What is the reason for the massive difference between the consolidated death rate in the USA of 2522 per million and the Australian figure of 85. Why is it thirty times ours?
It's somewhat sobering to understand that if that rate for Oz was the same as it is in the USA, we would have lost 64,000 Australians.
That's 7000 more than the number of Americans killed in Vietnam.
They built a wall in Washington to remember them. Every person killed had his or her name inscribed. It made an impact when I saw it in 2018.
Will the saving of so many Australian lives be acknowledged?
