California vs. Florida: The surprising answer to which state handled COVID better

true, and the total deaths was close

 

557, I can't find fault with your comment.

Thank you. one of my premises had to do with science, in that I felt the Republicans were ignoring it, and this 'might' be the reason their stats are worse. Now I didn't come out and say that in the OP, but it is a liberal's talking point. So, that's a mix of science and politics, but where it just might be warranted, but, I'll leave that to science to give the final word.

 

Yes I appreciate and applaud your concern for science. It is true the right rejected some of the science. And the left did as well. Many on the right rejected mask usage for example because so many untruths were told by public health officials on the issue. Most don’t have the background knowledge on the issue to determine what parts of the public health narrative were science based and which weren’t. So instead of accepting the science that the right masks in the right situations CAN mitigate Covid, they rejected masks outright. Public health entities can’t be caught outright lying and expect compliance from those lies to.

Many on the left accepted the lies as truth. They thought they were accepting science but they were accepting lies based on appeal to authority. They didn’t have the background knowledge to winnow the wheat from the chaff either.

The public shouldn’t have to distrust public health officials. We shouldn’t have to fact check the CDC on everything. But unfortunately that isn’t the world we live in. Because public health officials are not honest or strict adherents to science we do have to verify veracity of their claims. If we don’t, we will be misled no matter our political persuasions. And being misled about serious things like viral infections can cost you your life.

And the worst part is the dishonest public health entities count on political division to protect them from a unified nation demanding accountability. When we are in the mud hole fighting about red and blue states etc. they have free reign to continue their dishonest manipulations.

 

And Old folk were fat harder hit by covid than young ones and florida's average age is substantially older than that of CA. So you numbers really don;t mean much. And Urban areas full of you healthy folks, those least impacted by covid is essentially meaningless.

 

The problem is that we don't have a medical service adherent to the old hypocratic standard any more What we have is a medical industrial complex which is far more concerned with hanging on to extensive perks and prerequisites and expanding them than it is with the health of the public. And they are, because they have abrogate all wisdom and knowledge to them selves they are afraid to admit that there is something they don't know hence in the early days of Covid before march 2020 when we were in reality still collecting and collating data and all we really had to go on was the lies told China chiefest of which was that there was no human to human transmission.

In short the story of covid will become eventually a story of how not to deal with a pandemic. It became a political football and a money game rather than a medical/scientific problem. And it was all down hill from there. We killed the economy in order to fight a virus that has little impact on people under 50 who don't have serious comorbidities. Add to that the obvious problem that by the time the vaccines were ready the variation for which they were designed were no longer extant and the omicron variant which was appears to have pretty much ignored the vaccine no matter how many boosters you got. The claim that the shot at least limited the number of fatalities is to date not been serious studied. For all we know there were fewer deaths simply because omicron and it's sub variants simply aren't as deadly. We are unlikely to get that answer because there are vaccines to sell and royalties to be earned so any study that has the potential to reveal them to be unnecessary isn't going to happen a least not in the US.

 

Hypocratic standard?

You mean Hippocratic standard, as in the Hippocratic Oath.

You wouldn't call Hippocrates a hypocrite, now, would you?

Hah!

 

It sounds like you're really underestimating how complex and dedicated the world of modern medicine is. Despite what it might seem, healthcare hasn't really drifted away from those old Hippocratic values. At its core, the medical field is still all about putting patients first. It's not fair to say that doctors and nurses are just in it for the perks. They're genuinely committed to helping people, even in the face of big challenges like the medical industrial complex. Now, I'm not saying their isn't room for improvement, nor am I saying everyone is the paragon of medical perfection, it's just that I find your view a tad cynical.

When it comes to COVID-19, remember, we were all dealing with something totally new. It's normal to not have all the answers right away with a novel virus like this. It wasn't just about what information we were getting from China – every country was scrambling to figure it out. The response from the scientific community, though not perfect, really showed how adaptable and resilient they are when facing unknowns.

That being said, Trump did make some seriously unwise choices, but that's a subject for another thread.

You mentioned that COVID-19 didn't really affect people under 50 without other health issues, but that's not the whole picture. The pandemic was about more than just who got seriously ill. It was about not overwhelming hospitals, protecting the vulnerable, and dealing with long-term effects in younger people too. And those lockdowns and other measures? They were tough calls made to balance the unknown risks of the virus with what society needs.

About the vaccines – it's not quite right to say they weren't effective against variants like Omicron. Sure, they might not have worked quite as well, but they still played a huge role in reducing severe cases, hospital stays, and deaths. And this has been backed up by a lot of studies. Vaccines are always based on the best data available at the time, and they get updated as things change.

Lastly, the idea that there's some big conspiracy to hide studies showing vaccines are unnecessary for financial gain – that's more of a conspiracy theory than anything else. The world of scientific research is all about challenging what we know and updating our understanding. It's not about hiding the truth for a profit.

So, while healthcare and the response to COVID-19 aren't perfect, saying they're just driven by money and politics oversimplifies things a lot. There's a lot more going on beneath the surface.

References;

Modern Medicine and Hippocratic values:
https://medschool.ucla.edu/blog-post/modern-hippocratic-oath-holds-the-underlying-values-of
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00586-017-5348-4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_ethics
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/29786117
https://www.news-medical.net/health/How-has-Ancient-Medicine-Informed-Modern-Medicine.aspx

COVID-19 and the Scientific Community’s Response
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0263001
https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2020/20_0245.htm
https://events.cancer.gov/ccr/covid19symposium
https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/po...-is-critical-to-combatting-covid-19-cd6ab2f9/
https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/announcements/041720.jsp

COVID-19 Impact on People Under 50
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/hea...s-and-covid-19-younger-adults-are-at-risk-too
https://www.pewresearch.org/2021/03...-and-silver-linings-of-the-covid-19-pandemic/
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02483-2
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/children-youth/covid-19-and-young-people

Effectiveness of vaccines against variants
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19...fective-against-emergency-hospital-care-young
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-vaccines-variants-covid-.html
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/me...-omicron-for-best-immune-response/ar-AA1knftB
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/how-effective-are-covid-19-vaccines-against-omicron
https://time.com/6215580/original-vaccines-effectiveness-against-omicron/
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih...id-19-vaccines-induce-immune-response-omicron

Conspiracy Theories About COVID-19 Vaccines
https://www.scientificamerican.com/...t-covid-19-myths-and-why-people-believe-them/
https://www.healthline.com/health-n...ovid-19-vaccine-myths-and-conspiracy-theories
https://www.theguardian.com/world/n...iracy-theories-could-folklore-hold-the-answer
https://www.bbc.com/news/52847648