Almost a year after California Governor Gavin Newsom ordered the first statewide shutdown because of the coronavirus, masks remain mandatory, indoor meals and other activities are significantly limited and Disneyland remains closed.
In contrast, Florida has no restrictions across the state. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has banned municipalities from fining people who refuse to wear masks. And Disney World has been open since July.
Despite their different approaches, California and Florida had nearly identical results in COVID-19 case rates.
How did two states that adopted such divergent strategies reach similar points?
“This is going to be an important question that we have to ask ourselves: which public health measures really were the most impactful and which ones had a negligible effect or backfired by the behavior of driving underground?” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Safety.
Although the research found that masking mandates and limits on group activities, such as meals in closed environments, can help slow the spread of coronavirus, states with greater restrictions imposed by the government have not always done better than those without them.
California and Florida have had a COVID-19 case rate of about 8,900 per 100,000 residents since the start of the pandemic, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And both are in the middle between states in COVID-19 death rates – Florida was 27th on Friday; California was the 28th.
Connecticut and South Dakota are another example. Both are among the 10 worst states for COVID-19 death rates. Even so, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, a Democrat, imposed several restrictions across the state last year after an increase in the number of deaths, while South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, a Republican, did not issue warrants. as virus deaths skyrocketed in the fall.
While Lamont was ordering quarantines for some visitors from outside the state, Noem launched a $ 5 million tourism advertising campaign and welcomed people at a large motorcycle rally, which some health experts said spread the coronavirus across the Midwest.
Both claim that their approach is the best.
“Even in a pandemic, public health policy needs to take people’s economic and social well-being into account,” said Noem during a recent conservative convention.
Lamont recently announced that it is lifting capacity limits in retail stores, restaurants and other facilities as of March 19. But bars that do not serve food will remain closed and masking will continue.
“This is not Texas. This is not Mississippi. This is Connecticut, ”said Lamont, referring to other states that recently suspended mask orders.
“We are finding that what works is wearing a mask, social distance and vaccines,” he said.
As new COVID-19 cases decrease nationally, governors in more than half of the states have taken steps during the past two weeks to end or ease restrictions on the coronavirus, according to an Associated Press count. Some capacity limits ended on Friday in Maryland and Oklahoma. Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York and Wyoming are easing restrictions next week.
In almost all cases, governors praised their approach to the pandemic, while critics accused them of being too rigid or too loose.
California’s slow reopening is expected to gain strength in April. But Republicans in California are helping to organize a recall effort against Newsom that has attracted nearly 2 million petition signatures from people frustrated by their enduring limits on business, church meetings and popular activities. He also faces intense pressure on the closure of public schools and the glacial pace to reopen them.
Newson said California has been a leader in fighting the virus when making its state of the state speech. last week at Dodger Stadium, where the empty seats almost equaled the state’s 55,000 COVID-19 deaths.
“From the early days of this pandemic, California has relied on science and data, and we have found the moment,” said Newsom.
He added: “We are not going to change the course just because of some pessimists and pessimists.”
At your own address in the State of the State, DeSantis said Florida was in better shape than others because its businesses and schools are open. Florida’s unemployment rate was below the national average, and significantly lower than California’s earlier this year.
“While so many other states continued to arrest people over the months, Florida raised people,” said DeSantis.
Determining which approach is best is more complicated than just looking at state policies and overall case rates.
Like Florida, Missouri did not have a statewide masking mandate, ended business restrictions last June and has a cumulative COVID-19 death rate similar to that of California. In the absence of orders across the state, many of the largest cities in Florida and Missouri have imposed their own mask requirements and business restrictions. In Missouri, this meant that about half of the population was still subject to mask mandates.
Republican Governor Mike Parson recommended “a balanced approach” to the pandemic that left many public health decisions to local officials and allowed the Missouri economy to “come back strong”. New cases of COVID-19 and unemployment are low, and consumer spending has returned to pre-pandemic levels, Parson said last week.
State health director Randall Williams believes residents have responded to Parson’s call to voluntarily disguise when coronavirus cases in Missouri skyrocketed last fall to some of the highest levels across the country.
Public health experts said that individual choices could help explain the similar results between some states with loose or strict orders from the governor.
Some people voluntarily were “being more vigilant in states where the guidelines are more relaxed,” said Thomas Tsai, an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public Health TH Chan. Still, in states with more government mandates, “people generally in public wore masks and followed the guidelines, but in privacy they were letting their guard down and less vigilant,” he said.
Imposing strict measures, such as banning families from visiting grandparents and friends from getting together, is like taking an abstinence approach to tackling the use of drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, said Adalja of Johns Hopkins University.
Some will obey. But other “people will do these activities, anyway,” he said.
___
David A. Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri. The Associated Press writers, Brendan Farrington, in Tallahassee, Florida; Stephen Groves in Pierre, South Dakota; Susan Haigh in Norwich, Connecticut; and Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, California, contributed to this story.