# What state governments are acknowledged as handling this well? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [July 23, 2020, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085 "2020-07-23T07:37:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2020, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/21 "2020-07-24T14:11:49Z")
> [@agzem](#): > > NY was the worst Right now, New York seems to be doing pretty well. Why do you think New York’s handling of the pandemic was the worst? ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2020, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/22 "2020-07-24T14:38:49Z")
What did South Dakota do right? Honestly asking, I haven’t seen anything either way. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2020, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/23 "2020-07-24T15:59:22Z")
Illinois has done well. The governor took steps early and has been updating the public daily – useful press conferences with respected experts. Ditto Chicago, which took a major step earlyish by cancelling the huge St. Patrick’s Parade and where the mayor has also been proactive in communicating with the public. Both the state and Chicago maintained strict countermeasures even under pressure from parts of the business community and some rural Republican officials. The reopening has been very gradual, in measured steps based on the relevant numbers. And both the governor and mayor have been clear that countermeasures will be reapplied if the numbers require. Chicago just re-banned all indoor service in bars that don’t serve food and personal services (shaves and facials) that would require removing one’s mask. At least in my experience in metropolitan Chicago, the mask requirements have made indoor mask-wearing common and apparently uncontroversial. I see lots of people outdoors not wearing them (and many people wearing them) but being very good about keeping at least a six-foot distance. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2020, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/24 "2020-07-24T17:07:00Z")
Connecticut seems to have done a great job throughput, with one exception: allowing the virus to spread in nursing homes at the beginning of the crisis. Other than that significant misstep, we did a good job of flattening and crushing the curve. There is currently little community transmission of the virus in Connecticut. Now we’re just waiting for the virus to inevitably leak back in from where it is raging out of control in other parts of the country. On that note, Rachel Maddow had an interesting interview two nights ago with Dr. David Ho (the world-famous virologist who is famous for contributing to the current treatment for controlling HIV) about how sequential state responses have greatly extended the timeline of the pandemic in the U.S. Because every state is acting independently, we failed to get the virus under control everywhere at the same time, and it is now hopscotching around the country. > **[Why Trump's failure to lead national response prolongs coronavirus crisis](https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/why-trump-s-failure-to-lead-national-response-prolongs-coronavirus-crisis-88166981530)** > > Rachel Maddow revisits Dr. David Ho's charts comparing a simultaneous response to the coronavirus outbreak versus a sequential, state-by-state response, showing that the simultaneous response greatly shortens the overall duration of the outbreak. ---
**Author:** ![Trom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Trom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trom)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2020, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/25 "2020-07-24T23:39:28Z")
This is a pretty nice visualization of states’ case and death numbers in context: > **[Your State's COVID Numbers In Context](https://polimath.substack.com/p/your-states-covid-numbers-in-context)** > > I spent a lot of time on this so you didn’t have to read the whole thing. A lot of people have asked me on Twitter how their particular state is doing. If you don’t live in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Arizona and maybe California,... Hard to say how much credit/blame is due to governments, though. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2020, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/26 "2020-07-24T23:45:03Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > What did South Dakota do right? Decades of planning went into their pandemic readiness plan, the lynchpin of which was to be inhospitable to human habitation. ---
**Author:** ![agzem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a8b319/32.png) [@agzem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/agzem)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2020, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/27 "2020-07-25T01:19:58Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > Right now, New York seems to be doing pretty well. Why do you think New York’s handling of the pandemic was the worst? NY has already killed everybody and there’s few vulnerable left. Cuomo sent elderly people to a certain death in nursing homes and De Blasio was telling people to go see a movie in March. The numbers show how bad it was: New York: 1,679 deaths per million US: 449 deaths per million ---
**Author:** ![agzem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a8b319/32.png) [@agzem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/agzem)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2020, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/28 "2020-07-25T01:21:44Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > What did South Dakota do right? No lockdown and only 138 deaths per million. Far below the US avg of 449. ---
**Author:** ![RealityCheck71](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitycheck71/32/3493_2.png) [@RealityCheck71](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityCheck71)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2020, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/29 "2020-07-25T01:31:01Z")
Why didn’t you go with Alaska? They’re creaming SD in lower Deaths per Million. > **[An interactive visualization of COVID-19 | 91-DIVOC](https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-normalized&highlight=Alaska&show=highlight-only&y=both&scale=linear&data=deaths&data-source=jhu&xaxis=right&extra=South%20Dakota#states-normalized)** > > An interactive, data-forward visualization of COVID-19 data by Prof. Wade at The University of Illinois. Updated daily. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2020, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/30 "2020-07-25T01:36:18Z")
Oh, I thought you were being serious, not just pointing out the empty states. If you have a serious answer, I’ll be happy to read your cites that SD did better than other empty places. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2020, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/31 "2020-07-25T01:37:36Z")
NY definitely had some missteps in the beginning, when no one knew what to do. If only other states had learned from their errors. Instead, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and even California are totally fucking this up for those of us who sacrificed early on. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2020, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/32 "2020-07-25T01:38:07Z")
> [@agzem](#): > > No lockdown and only 138 deaths per million. Far below the US avg of 449. The death rate ranks about 15th lowest. But it’s the state with the 5th lowest population density, and ranks 1st for hospital beds per capita at twice the national average. These are two massive preexisting advantages that obviously are nothing to do with the state’s response to the pandemic. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2020, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/33 "2020-07-25T01:39:59Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Well, New York pushed the curve down very well. So it did well on that front. Although Cuomo’s putting of Covid patients in nursing homes is downright outrageous - hard to think of a more vulnerable population that a governor could deliberately endanger. It’s a political jab only, but no real substance of note, as facts are that the death rate in NY nursing homes due to Covid were far lower then other states, every state at first was following the same guidelines of the feds (Trump). Ny did well considering they were the hotspot of the virus (Again party due to the feds (Trump).) [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-nursing-homes.html](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-nursing-homes.html) ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2020, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/34 "2020-07-25T07:38:30Z")
South Dakota did a horrible job in the meat plant in Sioux Falls – for a while in April, it was the worst infection hot spot in the whole nation. Impressive, for such an empty state. And their death figures are cooked because so many employees there actually live (and died) just across the border in Minnesota or Iowa – because SD is such a lousy place to live. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2020, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/35 "2020-07-25T10:26:42Z")
Obviously, that poster can’t be seriously suggesting that the _lack of a lockdown_ was what made SD’s response great. He or she can’t be saying that NY shouldn’t have locked down. So, I’d love for that poster to come back and explain further, rather than just a couple of drive-by posts with some out-of-context statistics. @agzem, care to explain? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2020, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/36 "2020-07-25T14:24:09Z")
> [@agzem](#): > > NY has already killed everybody and there’s few vulnerable left. Nonsense. That’s probably not true even in NYCity; and many upstate counties have had few cases and have many people probably not yet exposed – in part because the shutdown, while far from total, plus the example of what was happening in the City led a good percentage of people to be very careful about possible exposure even before there were any confirmed cases within miles of them. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2020, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/37 "2020-07-25T15:46:23Z")
Here is the current seven day rolling average of deaths per day per one million residents. Delaware is a little weird here. They reported 49 deaths yesterday but only 11 in the seven days prior to that. I think, without checking, that those 49 were a reclassification of previous deaths as covid deaths and that 49 people didn’t actually die on the same day when one or two was the typical number. South Dakota is in 37th place edged only slightly by New York in 39th for what it’s worth. | Rank | State | Deaths | WoW | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | Arizona | 10.97 | +11.58% | | 2 | Delaware | 8.36 | +1325.00% | | 3 | South Carolina | 8.02 | +73.05% | | 4 | Louisiana | 6.42 | +65.87% | | 5 | Mississippi | 6.29 | +11.97% | | 6 | Florida | 5.64 | +20.63% | | 7 | Alabama | 5.04 | +7.45% | | 8 | Texas | 4.93 | +28.87% | | 9 | Georgia | 4.17 | +85.63% | | 10 | Nevada | 3.94 | +46.55% | | 11 | California | 2.62 | +10.17% | | 12 | Tennessee | 2.57 | +33.70% | | 13 | New Mexico | 2.45 | +38.46% | | 14 | Ohio | 2.29 | +128.05% | | 15 | Idaho | 2.08 | +52.94% | | 16 | Massachusetts | 1.99 | -9.43% | | 17 | North Carolina | 1.96 | +13.39% | | 18 | Arkansas | 1.94 | +2.50% | | 19 | Iowa | 1.81 | -2.44% | | 20 | Indiana | 1.72 | +47.27% | | 21 | Utah | 1.69 | +35.71% | | 22 | North Dakota | 1.69 | +80.00% | | 23 | Rhode Island | 1.62 | -14.29% | | 24 | Missouri | 1.54 | +20.00% | | 25 | Maryland | 1.49 | +12.50% | | 26 | Oklahoma | 1.41 | +34.48% | | 27 | New Jersey | 1.37 | -58.13% | | 28 | Pennsylvania | 1.28 | -12.88% | | 29 | Illinois | 1.26 | -6.67% | | 30 | New Hampshire | 1.26 | +140.00% | | 31 | Montana | 1.20 | +0.00% | | 32 | Washington | 1.16 | +10.71% | | 33 | Kansas | 1.13 | +109.09% | | 34 | Nebraska | 1.11 | -0.00% | | 35 | Wisconsin | 1.10 | +136.84% | | 36 | Kentucky | 1.06 | -13.16% | | 37 | South Dakota | 0.97 | -33.33% | | 38 | Colorado | 0.97 | +44.44% | | 39 | New York | 0.95 | -18.75% | | 40 | Oregon | 0.95 | +27.27% | | 41 | Virginia | 0.90 | -1.82% | | 42 | Minnesota | 0.84 | -17.50% | | 43 | District of Columbia | 0.81 | -55.56% | | 44 | Connecticut | 0.68 | -64.58% | | 45 | Michigan | 0.64 | -35.71% | | 46 | Alaska | 0.39 | +inf% | | 47 | Maine | 0.32 | -25.00% | | 48 | Hawaii | 0.30 | -25.00% | | 49 | Wyoming | 0.25 | -66.67% | | 50 | West Virginia | 0.24 | -40.00% | | 51 | Vermont | 0.00 | +nan% | ---
**Author:** ![Trom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Trom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trom)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2020, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/38 "2020-07-25T16:51:23Z")
Where’s this data from? ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2020, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/39 "2020-07-25T16:55:23Z")
> **[Worldometer - real time world statistics](https://www.worldometers.info/)** > > Live world statistics on population, government and economics, society and media, environment, food, water, energy and health. I have a Python script that screen scrapes each of the state pages and outputs a table in markdown format. Here it is if anyone is interested. ``` import re import requests import datetime import pandas as pd from bs4 import BeautifulSoup # Set parameters deaths_or_cases = "Deaths" per_capita = True # Get populations pop_file = "state_populations.txt" pop_dict = {} states = [] f = open(pop_file, 'r') for line in f: st, pop = line.strip().split('\t') pop_dict[st] = int(pop) if st != 'US': states.append(st) f.close() # Screen scrape both states. out_dict = {} for state in states: heading = "Daily New " + deaths_or_cases + " in " + state url_st = state.lower().replace(' ', '-') url = 'https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/' + url_st + '/' webpage = requests.get(url) soup = BeautifulSoup(webpage.text, 'lxml') graph_divs = soup.findAll("div", {"class": "row graph_row"}) for gd in graph_divs: h = gd.find('h3') if h.text.lower() == heading.lower(): break script = gd.find('script').text lines = script.split('\n') lines = [line.strip() for line in lines] # Get and clean x values from html source. x = next((line for line in lines if line.startswith('categories'))) x = re.search('\[(.+?)\]', x).group(1) x = x.replace('"','') x = x.split(',') x = [datetime.datetime.strptime(d + ' 2020', '%b %d %Y') for d in x] # Get and clean y values from html source. y = next((line for line in lines if line.startswith('data'))) y = re.search('\[(.+?)\]', y).group(1) y = y.replace('null','0') y = y.split(',') if per_capita: y = [1000000*int(d)/pop_dict[state] for d in y] else: y = [int(d) for d in y] # Put that stuff into a dataframe and calculate rolling averages. df = pd.DataFrame() df['Date'] = x col = state + ' Daily ' + deaths_or_cases df[col] = y df.set_index('Date', inplace = True) rcol = state + ' 7-day Avg' df[rcol] = df[col].rolling('7d').mean() wcol = state + ' WoW' df[wcol] = df[rcol].pct_change(periods=7) # For each state put 7 day avegae and week over week change # into the output dictionary out_dict[state] = [df.iloc[-1,:].loc[rcol], df.iloc[-1,:].loc[wcol]] print("|Rank|State|"+deaths_or_cases+"|WoW|") print("|:---|:---|:---|:---|") out_nice = sorted([[k, v[0], v[1]] for k, v in out_dict.items()], key = lambda x: -x[1]) for i, row in enumerate(out_nice): s, d, c = row out = [str(i + 1), s, "{:.2f}".format(d), "{0:+.2%}".format(c)] print("|" +"|".join(out)+"|") ``` ---
**Author:** ![agzem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a8b319/32.png) [@agzem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/agzem)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2020, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085/40 "2020-07-25T19:24:21Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Oh, I thought you were being serious, not just pointing out the empty states. If you have a serious answer, I’ll be happy to read your cites that SD did better than other empty places. The comparison is per capita. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-state-governments-are-acknowledged-as-handling-this-well/916085.md?page=3)