Given Florida’s population and high concentration of susceptible elders, it appears to be way safer than NY
I agree that, right now, New York is in pretty bad shape, but in the past 14 days, hospitalizations in Florida are +158% whereas they are +67% in New York. (data from the
NY Times). I use hospitalizations as my main indicator, because there’s so much confusion given the mish-mosh state of testing. Anyway, both states (particularly Southern Florida) have a LOT of Covid cases, and they seem to be rising faster in Florida. I wouldn’t trust any statistics that Governor Ron DeSantis gets his filthy hands on!
And with Florida’s lax restrictions and mandates compared to Oregon’s and NY’s draconian measures, what conclusion can be drawn about the effectiveness of those measures?
I live in NY. Our previous and current Governors have been very proactive in using various measures to try to control the spread of Covid. Remember, though, that NY was one of the epicenters in the first wave of Covid, which btw came from Europe rather than directly from China. I strongly support the control measures, even though personally I HATE wearing a mask. I do so in the appropriate circumstances, because it is the right and smart thing to do. I don’t, for a minute, feel that the government is controlling my life. I don’t know anyone who was fined or arrested by ignoring various “mandates.”
I think it’s very, very difficult to measure the effectiveness of social distancing and mask wearing. Way too many variables to compare one state with another. But common sense tells me that these measures WORK!
If you look for a correlation between rate of vaccination and Covid in the states, I think you’ll be disappointed. That doesn’t mean that vaccination doesn’t work. It simply means that there are too many variables involved.
Back to your original question. I would LOVE to travel right now. I still have a cruise booked from Fort Lauderdale on January 8th. I plan to cancel on Monday, January 3rd. I’m hoping that the cruise company beats me to it. In any event, there is no WAY that I’m going to fly to Florida right now. If I travel over the next few weeks, it will not involve dealing with airports, etc.
Are there safer states? At the moment, yes. But let’s talk again in a few weeks. Omicron is coming to a town near you!