A story told by a single chart
Deaths per million. Note the extraordinarily high spike for New York state. This was likely the result of extraordinarily bad state policy that directed covid patients into nursing homes filled with fragile elderly people with all kinds or preexisting conditions. (The nursing homes were forbidden by state law from rejecting the covid patients.) The justification for doing this was an anticipated wave of covid hospitalizations that never materialized that officials feared would overwhelm hospitals. Remember all the shrieking about 'not enough ventilators'? (So Trump's people managed sourcing emergency supplies of ventilators... that ended up never being used. To say nothing of a large Army field hospital in Central Park and a hospital ship in the harbor, that were never needed.)
The real villain here was probably the scientists with their doomsday predictions of exponential spread. Remember that Imperial College London projection that all the leaders were citing as gospel? (It was Science, don't you know? If you question it, you expose yourself as a science denier!) Turned out to be totally wrong. But it succeeded in panicking many of the politicians, so many vulnerable elderly people unnecessarily died as the result of the terrible decisions that panicking politicians made.
Absent the nursing home disaster, Sweden, Texas and Georgia all seem to have experienced similar sized peaks (in per million terms) in Covid deaths. The big difference is that Georgia and Texas experienced their peaks somewhat later. That's probably the result of the epidemiology. The disease originated in China, Trump closed the US to travel from China very early (and was excoriated as a "racist" for doing it) and the US seems to have been infected at second hand by travelers from Europe, which in turn had been infected by China. The disease seems to have gotten its first US foothold in New York City, where the disease spread rapidly due to crowding in places like the subway. The NYC city government was also slow in responding telling people to continue going out on the town and spending money.
And the disease spread around the US to the other American states, largely from NY. Generally speaking, the more rural a state is, the slower its peak. Probably because covid started as a big city disease and only gradually spread with travelers who had been infected in the big cities.
Cases per million - Deaths is probably a better indicator of the spread of this thing, since the number of cases is in some large part a function of testing. The more testing you do, the more cases you are likely to find. So apparently many of the new cases (which really seem to be spiking in Europe which is starting to panic again) are minor or even asymptomatic. Deaths don't seem to be spiking to nearly the same extent. And now that more vulnerable populations are being protected better, they probably won't.
Comparing US states that do and don't require masks doesn't show a tremendous amount of difference.
Deaths per million. Note the extraordinarily high spike for New York state. This was likely the result of extraordinarily bad state policy that directed covid patients into nursing homes filled with fragile elderly people with all kinds or preexisting conditions. (The nursing homes were forbidden by state law from rejecting the covid patients.) The justification for doing this was an anticipated wave of covid hospitalizations that never materialized that officials feared would overwhelm hospitals. Remember all the shrieking about 'not enough ventilators'? (So Trump's people managed sourcing emergency supplies of ventilators... that ended up never being used. To say nothing of a large Army field hospital in Central Park and a hospital ship in the harbor, that were never needed.)
The real villain here was probably the scientists with their doomsday predictions of exponential spread. Remember that Imperial College London projection that all the leaders were citing as gospel? (It was Science, don't you know? If you question it, you expose yourself as a science denier!) Turned out to be totally wrong. But it succeeded in panicking many of the politicians, so many vulnerable elderly people unnecessarily died as the result of the terrible decisions that panicking politicians made.
Absent the nursing home disaster, Sweden, Texas and Georgia all seem to have experienced similar sized peaks (in per million terms) in Covid deaths. The big difference is that Georgia and Texas experienced their peaks somewhat later. That's probably the result of the epidemiology. The disease originated in China, Trump closed the US to travel from China very early (and was excoriated as a "racist" for doing it) and the US seems to have been infected at second hand by travelers from Europe, which in turn had been infected by China. The disease seems to have gotten its first US foothold in New York City, where the disease spread rapidly due to crowding in places like the subway. The NYC city government was also slow in responding telling people to continue going out on the town and spending money.
And the disease spread around the US to the other American states, largely from NY. Generally speaking, the more rural a state is, the slower its peak. Probably because covid started as a big city disease and only gradually spread with travelers who had been infected in the big cities.
Cases per million - Deaths is probably a better indicator of the spread of this thing, since the number of cases is in some large part a function of testing. The more testing you do, the more cases you are likely to find. So apparently many of the new cases (which really seem to be spiking in Europe which is starting to panic again) are minor or even asymptomatic. Deaths don't seem to be spiking to nearly the same extent. And now that more vulnerable populations are being protected better, they probably won't.
Comparing US states that do and don't require masks doesn't show a tremendous amount of difference.