Red States and of course red states in the South are the butt of much mainstream media reporting. The ignorance of, and disrespect for the region is pervasive. It doesn't help that so much of the reporting is driven by prejudices and ignores the facts.
This has been on display during the Covid crisis when red states are mocked for policies too late or too early, too much or too little, and for policies based on ignorance of science. In the latter case, it is almost never about the science, much of which is not yet in play owing to absence of good data and good methods, but rather about politicians acknowledging the importance of citizen rights, the emergent order of social customs, and the fact that there is not a singular goal, but multiple goals which have to be balanced and harmonized among each other. How do we respect constitutional freedoms and proper authority of initiatives, how do we sustain economic activity, especially for those living paycheck-to-paycheck, how do we flatten the curve, and how do we address the special needs of the most vulnerable.
All in an environment completely riddled by bad and/or insufficient data.
The mainstream media has shifted the goal posts from flattening the curve to death obviation - a desirable but unachievable goal and certainly one not achievable while giving due recognition of the other equally valid objectives.
The news has been full of mockery of all the Floridians at the beaches. Mockery of Georgia beginning to open the economy beginning with tattoo parlors, bowling centers, gyms, and hair salons. Mockery of, well, just about everything.
This article by Scott is a cut above the average. You cannot help but perceive a glimmer of, what? Disappointment? No, it is not that bad. Perplexity perhaps. "Florida is doing everything we media journalists say is wrong to do and God is not punishing them. Our darling of governance, New York, is doing everything we think should be done and is suffering."
But whatever sotto voce vibe you pick up, it is unexpectedly reasonably straight reporting. He called experts on the ground, not just in his preferred New York (or Washington, D.C.) rolodex. He appears to be accurately reporting what they said. Refreshing in its own way. Wish we had more of this.
Because there is a legitimate mystery here. Florida is a major tourist destination and logistical hub. They have a lot of transient movement of people and goods. It is a big state with a major international city. It has a disproportionate number of elderly. I suspect it has a disproportionate percent of the population with known co-morbidities such as obesity, lung diseases, diabetes, etc.
Given what we know, even though we really still don't know much, Florida's low incidence rate is reasonably surprising.
In raw totals, Florida had the eighth-most coronavirus cases as of April 24. It has the third-most people, so if you adjust for population, Florida slides all the way down to 18th in Covid-19 cases per capita, according to tabulations from USA Today last week.The mainstream media policy preferences have evolved diametrically over the past few months but are currently pretty aligned with what you might expect from a world-view which is statist, prescriptive, deterministic, and coercive. Confinement in homes; shut down the economy; suspension of constitutional rights; over-reliance on fallible forecasting models; over-dependence on "experts" with narrow domains of expertise; anti-democratic disrespect for the desires of citizens; sustained shutdowns; precautionary principle approach; monomaniacal focus on singular outcomes in multi-variable, multi-party, multi-goal, complex systems, etc.
The important indicators — daily new cases and deaths — haven’t totally taken a turn for the better yet, but they don’t appear to be getting dramatically worse either.
“It looks to me like we are not really declining at this point, but we’re on a plateau,” Hladish said, adding the Florida outbreak was “clearly not growing exponentially.”
To account for some of the lag in reporting delays, let’s go back a couple of weeks to see how Covid-19 is trending in the Sunshine State.
On April 13, there were 995 new cases reported. On April 20, there were 763. There were 41 deaths on April 13 and 38 on April 20. The high point for new cases was April 3; for daily deaths, it was April 6. Even allowing for imperfect reporting, Florida does not seem to be experiencing exponential growth as seen in New York City. It is testing at an average rate, ranking 20th in tests per million people. So while a fair number of cases could be being missed, the state is not an outlier by any means in its ability to track the disease.
Jerne Shapiro, a lecturer at the University of Florida’s epidemiology department, summarized her feelings like this: “I am optimistic when I’m looking at those trendlines.”
So why haven’t the worst fears for Florida come to pass? With one more caution that things could still break bad in the coming days and weeks, let’s run through a few of the theories I went over with public health experts in the state.
Florida has done little or none of that and seems to have escaped.
My position is that none of us understands nearly enough to make accurate predictions. Singapore looked to be an example and now seems to be succumbing. To a lesser degree Japan and South Korea. We are discovering that some of the earlier success were lucky, some of the earlier manifest failures were unlucky, and that every causal model is so far incomplete and not especially useful.
Some of the things which seem to have helped Florida are the inverse of what has made outbreaks elsewhere worse.
Much better voluntary social distancing earlier - More people practicing social distancing more effectively without coercion.Scott actually is pretty fair even though all the shibboleths and assumptions of the mainstream media are turned upside down and even though Florida's success to date is an indictment of the states with more coercive and statist approaches.
Much greater reduction in non-essential trips - Fewer extra-residential trips.
Effective subsidiarity and federalism - While the state acted later than federal guidelines, individual counties and municipalities, where they thought it appropriate acted earlier than the state and sometimes earlier than the federal recommendations.
Low density of the state - Low density of housing. Better access to the outdoors without proximity to others.
Single car transportation over mass transit - Infection rates in cars being materially smaller than in subways.
Few high-rises - Less common infrastructure of surfaces by which to spread.
Scott takes pains to point out that this still might reverse. He isn't explicit but it is hard not to acknowledge that we don't really know what is going on.
Indeed. Perhaps all reporting ought at this time (if not always) lead with:
Everything reported in this piece may be untrue. Stay tuned for updates.
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