> ..with lockdowns in effect enough to keep hospitalization rates below capacity.
My understanding is that lockdowns didn't really change things significantly, so the "with lockdowns in effect" is not really relevant. See California (extreme lockdowns from the top) vs Florida (a bit of lockdown from the top) and their associated infection rate per 100k, which is nearly the same.
So do you think Florida is lying and underestimating the number of COVID deaths to greater extent than California is, or the California is exaggerating the number of COVID deaths, or maybe that there's a difference in behavior between Floridians and Californians (maybe California had stricter laws but Floridians act more responsibly in terms of disease prevention).
If you don't have such an explanation, and California, with some of the most stringent measures in the US, had similar outcomes to Florida, with a much laxer approach, I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that California's approach was "very good".
There was no actual lockdown in any state in the USA, including California. There were instead these totally unenforced stay at home “orders” and mask “mandates” which people ignored with no consequences. It’s no surprise that the disease spread rampantly through all 50 states. I live in California and there was nothing stringent about the measures—while many people voluntarily followed them, they were routinely ignored by enough people to make them worthless.
Alright, so after seeing what government interventions, at least in the US, looked like in practice, would you agree with the statement "Government interventions like lockdowns and school closings were a very good response."?
Because that is the comment I was responding to, which was itself a response to a comment comparing the outcomes of Florida and California. "Nowhere in the US, and very few western countries, had a sufficient response" is a valid position, and probably accurate (with the caveat that I'm not confident that a sufficient response was even possible in the US), but it wasn't really the point under discussion.
I’m saying that government interventions were tragically insufficient in all 50 states. The difference between CA’s and FL’s responses was the difference between doing next to nothing and doing nothing. It’s not a surprise that the virus spread similarly out of control in both states.
Because lockdowns only work if you actually lockdown.
That and yes, FL clearly lied and has fired people for indicating correct numbers. This is not helped by many US states that try to record CV19 deaths as being due to "underlying conditions" instead of covid.
If you go to hospital due to covid, and then die, whatever other conditions you have aren't relevant, covid is what killed you.
I think it is clear we still don’t understand fully the driving risk and safety factors across different regional areas, let alone continents and hemispheres. I don’t know how we ever could at this time or what we could do about it.
People who claim the Florida state government is lying are no different from QAnon conspiracy theorists. Where is your hard data? What are the real numbers? Where are they hiding the bodies?
My understanding is that lockdowns didn't really change things significantly, so the "with lockdowns in effect" is not really relevant. See California (extreme lockdowns from the top) vs Florida (a bit of lockdown from the top) and their associated infection rate per 100k, which is nearly the same.