Yes, and this is likely to reflect that (1) initial outbreaks were concentrated in cities/international hubs, more of which vote democrat and (2) in the initial outbreak testing capacity was lower, meaning that there were likely many more undiagnosed cases in these states. Treatment and therefore survival has improved too, but I think overall Linch’s suggestion of mortality is a fairer metric for covid prevalence.
Yeah I agree. At the risk of derailing the conversation further, I think there are several different things going on here:
1. Whether reported cases or reported deaths are a better proxy for total covid-19 prevalence. (or a different proxy entirely)
2. Whether total (relative) covid-19 prevalence in turn is the right proxy for “how well these regions handled the pandemic.”
3. Whether/which different government are counterfactually more morally responsible in a culpable way.
For #1, I think reported deaths aren’t obviously a better proxy for overall relative prevalence than reported cases, but they are better upon reflection. I empathetically do not think that they are the best metric, as of October 2020, and I think for the narrow question “did Trump-voting states have more or less covid-19 prevalence per capita than non-Trump-voting states” is something that you can probably form an educated opinion of in several hours or so (probably less), but there isn’t an obvious single metric for me to point to immediately.
For #2, I think this is hotly contested. One thing to note is that many US regions are going for a de facto partial herd immunity strategy, so some people will argue that total (true) deaths is a better proxy for “success of handling the pandemic” than total (true) prevalence. For example, “we delayed the pandemic long enough that we now have better medical care and the most vulnerable populations have self-selected out, hence driving our covid-19 deaths down” is a steelmanned conservative narrative that has some truth to it.
I think it’s a bit nuanced because long-term disability matters a lot (as well as long-term economic impacts), so it’s a more complicated question of whether you think true prevalence correlates better with long term consequences than true # of deaths. Again, better proxies are possible.
For #3, I think I share the (commonsensical?) view that the US in general, and Republican states in particular, screwed up in many ways, some of which is ex ante foreseeable, and most likely a Clinton presidency would have done better. To the specific question of state actions, I do think my dominant hypothesis is the (again, likely commonsensical?) Republican states somewhat squandered natural advantages like lower population densities and less international travel, and did some dumb things. However, I think we should be very careful about reasoning in a format that looks like
Alice and Bob have a disagreement. We like Alice more.
Naive evidence says X, we blame Bob.
Updated evidence says not X, we now have a more nuanced view that continues to blame Bob.
Hence why (even though I agree in many ways with OP and the folk views on who is more morally culpable for pandemic actions) I want to address this discrepancy in facts/framing carefully.
Yes, and this is likely to reflect that (1) initial outbreaks were concentrated in cities/international hubs, more of which vote democrat and (2) in the initial outbreak testing capacity was lower, meaning that there were likely many more undiagnosed cases in these states. Treatment and therefore survival has improved too, but I think overall Linch’s suggestion of mortality is a fairer metric for covid prevalence.
Yeah I agree. At the risk of derailing the conversation further, I think there are several different things going on here:
1. Whether reported cases or reported deaths are a better proxy for total covid-19 prevalence. (or a different proxy entirely)
2. Whether total (relative) covid-19 prevalence in turn is the right proxy for “how well these regions handled the pandemic.”
3. Whether/which different government are counterfactually more morally responsible in a culpable way.
For #1, I think reported deaths aren’t obviously a better proxy for overall relative prevalence than reported cases, but they are better upon reflection. I empathetically do not think that they are the best metric, as of October 2020, and I think for the narrow question “did Trump-voting states have more or less covid-19 prevalence per capita than non-Trump-voting states” is something that you can probably form an educated opinion of in several hours or so (probably less), but there isn’t an obvious single metric for me to point to immediately.
For #2, I think this is hotly contested. One thing to note is that many US regions are going for a de facto partial herd immunity strategy, so some people will argue that total (true) deaths is a better proxy for “success of handling the pandemic” than total (true) prevalence. For example, “we delayed the pandemic long enough that we now have better medical care and the most vulnerable populations have self-selected out, hence driving our covid-19 deaths down” is a steelmanned conservative narrative that has some truth to it.
I think it’s a bit nuanced because long-term disability matters a lot (as well as long-term economic impacts), so it’s a more complicated question of whether you think true prevalence correlates better with long term consequences than true # of deaths. Again, better proxies are possible.
For #3, I think I share the (commonsensical?) view that the US in general, and Republican states in particular, screwed up in many ways, some of which is ex ante foreseeable, and most likely a Clinton presidency would have done better. To the specific question of state actions, I do think my dominant hypothesis is the (again, likely commonsensical?) Republican states somewhat squandered natural advantages like lower population densities and less international travel, and did some dumb things. However, I think we should be very careful about reasoning in a format that looks like
Hence why (even though I agree in many ways with OP and the folk views on who is more morally culpable for pandemic actions) I want to address this discrepancy in facts/framing carefully.