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Comment by bfung | Hacker News Reader

The death rate per capita seems to suggest Florida probably could’ve done better. 20th highest death per capita out of the 50 states.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/covid19_mortality_...

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And 7th highest median age, so 20th for deaths per capita for a virus far more lethal by age would be positive performance:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr...

There are lots of metrics available to optimize for or use as guidance. The choice of which metrics to pay attention to is a politcal matter.

I don't know that any state made it a policy to optimize for a reduced death rate directly. They chose hospitalizations in the early days and then I think metrics disappeared, or only the R value was loosely paid attention to. That's my point.

If death rate wasn't a chosen metric then it's irrelevant.

Florida is also a magnet for old people, and old people are a magnet for dying from COVID. I wonder how they did if we control for age?

Is it OK for old people to be culled from time to time? Or should Florida, knowing they had a higher than average number of obese, hypertensive, and elderly people, have done more to protect these vulnerable populations? Control for age, and it just shows how awful Florida's response was.

Doesn't Florida have lots of elderly people?

Aren't elderly people entitled to life?

Covid mainly was a threat to life for the elderly. I'd be curious to see a covid death by state chart side by side with the states average age. If Florida has more elderly a middle of the pack performance might be exceptional.

If you contrasted nursing home covid deaths to high school covid deaths you'd see high schools "did better", but that probably has nothing to do with policy.

What I think you're getting at - and please correct me if I'm wrong - but we should only protect citizens from external health risks greater than the most healthy young adult can bear. If you are disabled, ill, or otherwise more at risk for illnesses, you are not worthy to protect. Certainly not as much as a young adult.

At no point does any of that say that. Really none of what I said is even opinion at all, no idea how you got to that conclusion.

The initial great, great grandparent comment said something like "Florida had a horrible response to COVID". Your response was to state Florida has more elderly than other states, apparently refuting the fact that Florida's response to COVID was horrible. Why? Because it seems like mostly only old people died. This indicates that adequate precautions were not taken to protect the elderly.

The type of trolling you're doing isn't cute.

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