Author Mark Harris unleashed this hot take on Ron DeSantis insinuating that GOP love of the Florida governor is misplaced because the state right now has “the highest new covid case rate and third highest number of daily deaths in the U.S.”:
Criticize Ron DeSantis all you want, but Florida now has…the highest new covid case rate and third highest number of daily deaths in the U.S.
So really, criticize him all you want. Do it.
— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) April 26, 2021
He left out something important, however. Here’s Nate Silver to explain to him just how stats work:
It also has the third highest population.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 26, 2021
Florida is 28th in the US in COVID deaths per capita and 22nd in the US in COVID cases per capita. In other words, pretty much right at the average. There are a lot of bad takes about Florida. https://t.co/qTD00nn5YQ
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 27, 2021
Others jumped in as well:
Actually, it's 6th in new cases per capita and 8th in new deaths per capita and, perhaps more importantly, it's 23rd in new cases per capita and 28th in new deaths per capita since January 21, but sure it's doing terribly ? https://t.co/UfcUpzUKfC https://t.co/N4q4ejCTVh
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) April 27, 2021
Dr. Lucky Tran, a self-proclaimed “public health communicator,” then jumped in to defend Harris, saying the U.S. should have been more like Vietnam:
Here’s a factual take:
Population of Florida: 22M
Deaths: 34,912Population of Vietnam: 97M
Deaths: 35Imagine the thousands of lives that could have been saved if leaders in Florida took COVID-19 seriously.
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) April 27, 2021
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Um, okay?
It's weird to me to make this about Florida when their statistics are almost exactly average for the United States. If you want to argue that the US overall has done worse than Vietnam, I'd happily agree.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 27, 2021
Maybe libs missed the part where Vietnam shut down their borders to keep Covid-19 out:
Vietnam literally sealed its borders. Florida…cannot do that.
— Jeff B., who on earth is this guy?? (@EsotericCD) April 27, 2021
Vox even pointed that out last week:
Vietnam – a country of 97 million – has seen just 35 coronavirus deaths since the pandemic began.
How did the country contain the spread of Covid-19 so well? With strict, early travel restrictions.
Here’s what that looked like: https://t.co/RhTSLeDu11
— Vox (@voxdotcom) April 26, 2021
Anyway, Florida is in pretty good shape right now, thank you very much:
3 months ago the rolling 7 day average for deaths :177
Today : 58 https://t.co/bzmjPtjPxu
— my mom kim mulkey (@Pnel319) April 27, 2021
And:
Good job on using statistical noise from daily samplings over using long term trends! https://t.co/wQ8pjNhMLA
— William (@SouthernSummr) April 27, 2021
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