Why do states with more restrictions currently have more cases than those with fewer restrictions? – Warm air

Why do states with more restrictions currently have more cases than those with fewer restrictions? – Warm air

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We have been struggling with this question on this site for several weeks now. NBC presents three theories in the excerpts below, none of which are very convincing.

One: Maybe the states with fewer cases just do fewer tests. In essence, they want you to believe that the decline in the south is a mirage, that COVID may be just as bad as in the northeast, but that no one knows about it because they are not testing enough people to find it. out. It is true that southern states have generally tested less than in the northern states, but Louisiana ranks 15th out of the 50 states in tests per capita, and the cases are seen to decline for months. Even in states with limited testing, the positivity rate should give us an idea of ​​whether cases are rising or falling. And in Texas, California and Arizona, to take just three examples, the positivity rate is far from its winter peak.

However, the acid test is hospitalizations. If there is a real increase in cases in the population, it may eventually lead to an increase in hospitalizations. It is in Michigan, the state hardest hit in the union. But in Texas, hospitalizations are still declining nearly a month after the mask mandate and capacity constraints for businesses were lifted. This is not a mirage. Cases are really down there.

Two: Perhaps there is more natural immunity in countries that have adopted fewer restrictions, making it more difficult for the virus to spread at this late stage of the pandemic, relative to the ease with which it spreads in pro-lockdown states. The logic behind the theory is appealing: states that remained open facilitated more socialization by their inhabitants, and more socialization would mean that the virus spread more widely and infected a larger portion of the population. I made the point yesterday that in the COVID cases per capita, Michigan is in the top 10 among U.S. states, indicating that relatively few people there were infected until recently. This meant that there was less natural immunity, which in turn means that there is now more ignition for a wave. In Texas, where restrictions were lighter, this may not be the case.

But there are wrinkles in the theory. Texas and California may have had more cases per capita than Michigan, but they had far fewer than New York and New Jersey, which both saw cases rise lately (though it’s not like Michigan). If you want to compare per capita deaths rather than a measure of how many infections a particular state has seen, note that New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts are the top three of the US states, while Texas ranks 24th and California the 31st place. Michigan ranks 21st – whore as one of the latter two states. Deaths are not a perfect apple-to-apple comparison between states, as some (New York and New Jersey) had their deaths ‘pre-loaded’ at the beginning of the pandemic, when hospital treatments for COVID were primitive, while others later seen more hospitalizations. , when doctors could save people better. But, regardless of their positions for closure, it’s hard to look at what the northeast has gone through and get away with thinking that there should be less natural immunity there than in the south.

Three: Maybe university kids from the north are going south for spring break, getting infected there and bringing the virus back home. Okay, okay – but university students in the south also go on spring break. Would they not spread the virus in their own hometowns after returning and also sowing outbreaks in the south? And would not business owners who care about spring customers become infected and then spread the virus in their own local communities? I do not know why there will be a difference between epidemics in lockdown against counter-closures, because young people travel more.

I stick to my half-assed pet theory to explain why the lockdown states perform worse than the anti-lockdown: Weather. After all, California was a heavy-handed pro-lockdown state, but their affairs have been in free fall since late January. Yesterday, they recorded just 2,402 cases across the country, placing them ninth out of the 50 states, even though they had by far the largest population. And the worst period in California was during the winter, when it endured a severe outbreak, despite the fact that it still had many restrictions. I think the weather that drives more people outdoors is the easiest explanation for the geographical variance in cases. To the extent that easing restrictions encourages people to go outside more, it may be helpful to fend things off, but weather probably plays a bigger role.

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