Coronavirus Information...who do you trust?

[Belsnickel]

(07-16-2020, 09:00 AM)GMDino Wrote: On that chart it looks like two Trump winning states are doing oddly better than the rest.  Both are not what I would call traditionally "red" states: PA nad MI.

I focused in on where PA is obviously.  The state went for Trump by this by no means a "red" state overall with a Democratic Governor and Republican controlled House and Senate.  We have been very good at keeping our numbers low because of the Governor.  The GOP has filed lawsuits and passed legislation to take power away from Wolf so they can "hurry up and open the state".  I don't like how he lumps the rural counties were very few cases in with the urban centers with a lot of cases but he and Dr. Levine have done a good job here.  But the problem we face is that the Trump supporters just don't believe it is a problem.  They think it's all a plot to get Trump and deliberately harm them.  It's sad to watch.

Not really commenting on how or why the graph was done, just pointing out that little factoid while wondering how Trump will continue to spin how "Democrat led areas are doing so much worse".

The two lowest Trump states, Wyoming and South Dakota, are likely there because of population density. I mean, I still say that policies aren't really the guiding force in the number of cases. Your governor or legislature can put whatever they want in place, but if people ignore the guidance it doesn't matter. Attitudes of the population is a more important thing than who is leading the response. We've had a mask mandate in place for a while, now, but we are seeing areas where cases are on the rise because people aren't listening to the guidance.

I had a long conversation about this the other night. I had to lead our monthly commissioners' meeting because the District Commissioner is a doctor and super busy right now and I'm the Assistant District Commissioner. Our Unit Commissioners in the surrounding country were all talking about how much the units we disregarding all the guidance. It's the youth, the adults, and the parents all. My UCs actually said they are going to stop visiting in person because of their concerns over their health. We are constantly fighting this battle with our units because we want to keep everyone safe, but some people just don't want to pay attention to the data. I can almost guarantee you that if you drilled down to a locality level you would find the same correlation between 2016 election results and these mask attitudes that that graph displays between increasing cases and the election results by state.