Trends in COVID-19 cases are finally beginning to diverge in California-loving blockchain and in Florida open all hours, the data show.
California now sees about half the number of new cases of COVID-19 per day compared to Florida, a Financial Times analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University shows.
On Wednesday, California reported 5,750 new cases – or about 14 per 100,000 people in the population – and 1,084 deaths, with a test positive rate of 3.45 percent.
In Florida, the test positivity rate was almost twice as high as 6.76%, according to COVID tracking project data. The state registered 7,128 new cases – almost 27 per capita – and 127 additional deaths.
Parallel trends between the two states last month left public health experts, such as Biden councilor Jeff Zients, scratching their heads as to how a state has implemented some of the nation’s strictest and longest-lasting measures. (California) might not do better than Florida, which never imposed the mask mandate.
Experts say the blockades are probably not as useful now as they were at the beginning of the pandemic, but new data suggests that California has an advantage over Florida.
New COVID-19 cases in California (blue) began to decline more sharply than in Florida (green) in late January. The West Coast state recorded about 14 new per capita infections on Wednesday, compared to 27 per capita in Florida
On January 1, with the rise of post-Thanksgiving Covid in cases that were still flooding the United States and the second post-holiday wave was just beginning to collapse, California saw nearly twice as many cases as Florida.
On the first day of 2021, California saw about 90 new coronavirus infections per capita per day compared to Florida.
California’s home state orders have just been renewed “indefinitely” on December 29, effectively blocking millions of people in Southern California.
Florida, meanwhile, was doing more or less business than usual. In fact, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has extended an executive order that has blocked local governments in his state from implementing any restrictions that could put residents out of work or shut down businesses.
According to a Wallethub analysis, Florida has the sixth most lax COVID-19 restriction in the country. With its metrics, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Iowa and Arkansas have fewer restrictions on meals and clothing.
However, he does better than California – for a moment.
New cases, both in California and Florida, continue to decline, as they have since early January, but the decline of the West Coast state far exceeds that of the Sunshine state.
As of Feb. 10, new per capita cases in California have halved, from 29 to 100,000 people to 14, starting Wednesday.
Florida has been slower to reduce COVID-19.
Yesterday, the state registered 27 new cases per capita, down from 35 on February 10.
This is still a considerable decrease – of 23% – but it is certainly not as precipitous.
The switch came at the end of last month. Cases per capita have been steadily declining and declining in Florida, but California has been in a real free fall (although the decline has smoothed out a bit there as well).
Suddenly, the daily rates of cases in California have dropped below those in Florida, and the gap is widening.
On January 25, Governor Newsom lifted orders to stay at home in Southern California.
For the time being, the decline in cases is still accentuated and sustained. Cases continue to fall in Florida.
But both states are facing a possible reversal.
Florida has more cases of the “super-covid” variant B117 in the UK than any other state in the nation, with 489.
California has less than half as many, but has the second largest number of B117 cases in the United States, with 204.
Renowned researcher Fred Hutchinson, Dr. Trevor Bedford, said last week that the two states will be the ones to predict how the variants could affect the trajectory of the pandemic in the United States more widely.
California also has a new problem: a home variant, which experts say will account for 90 percent of cases in the state next month, and which a small data set suggests could be more deadly.
