Page History

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An article published March 25, 2021 “UK 2021 “UK Lockdown One Year On: It Doesn't Work, It Never Worked, & It Wasn't Supposed To Work” Work” – by Kit Knightly (see https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/uk-lockdown-one-year-it-doesnt-work-it-never-worked-it-wasnt-supposed-work) shows by Kit Knightly shows the following chart for Florida and CalifoirniaCalifornia.

The article takes this as evidence that lockdowns do not work. It then goes on to advocate for no lockdowns, no social distancing, no masks etc. and blames such restrictions as being worse than useless and propagated by governments for ulterior motives.

A more balanced article on the impact of lockdowns both pro and con can be found here.

Analysis

We extend the study to also cover New York and Texas, though we focus on California and Florida. The populations and political leanings of the most populated states in the US are below:

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As can be seen "For much of the last year, it seemed that California’s response under Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom had led to a dramatically lower COVID-19 death rate. Florida had a cumulative rate as much as 84% higher than California’s last fall. But the winter surge slammed California, and that gap narrowed to 11%."(1). It is seen that overall there is not a dramatic difference in the cases between California and Florida.

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• "North Dakota and South Dakota are both among the least restrictive states in the country with the higher per capita case rates of COVID-19 in the country. North Dakota has had 13,036 cases per 100,000 residents while South Dakota has had 12,585 per 100,000" according to data tracking from the New York Times.
• "Vermont and Hawaii, on the other hand, have some of the lowest per capita case rates in the country (2,341 and 1,912 per 100,000, respectively) and among the most restrictive policies, according to data analysis from WalletHub."

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References

(1) "California vs. Florida: Who handled COVID-19 better?" Los Angeles Times, Mar 9, 2021