[GavinMcG]

This or that state government's mandate or lack thereof really can't stand in for actual behaviors.

For one thing, regardless of state mandates, you can bet your buttons that a huge number of residential/nursing facilities for seniors in Florida did lock down, and thereby protected those most likely to increase Florida's numbers.

If you want to see the effects of policy, don't compare states (especially big diverse ones like California). Compare, for example, San Francisco (with peak 7-day-average new cases of 363, total cases 36.7k, and population of 874k) and Miami (peak 7-day-average new cases of 3240, total cases 494k, and population of 2710k). Per capita, Miami was about four times worse.

SF: https://www.google.com/search?q=san+francisco+covid+numbers

Miami: https://www.google.com/search?q=miami+covid+numbers

[chmod600]

There was both a policy difference as well as a behavior difference when it came to schools.

Also, case numbers are a bad thing to measure. Death numbers are more reliable.

EDIT: also, it appears state policy exacerbated the nursing home problems in California:

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/05/06/editorial-newsom-falt...

[GavinMcG]

There you go, dig into the specific policy choices of specific leaders. The world isn't as simple as which team you're on.