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This much is obvious: Anyone who dies a preventable death from the pandemic is robbed of a part of their lifetime. What may not be so obvious is that time and mortality are related in a more collective way. Any time that states lose in getting the virus under control can be measured in additional deaths.
Exhibit A here is the state of Florida, which was making some progress in slowing their covid-19 mortality rate between mid-May and mid-June. But since the recent resurgence, the state’s rate of increase in total deaths is 16% for this past week (4301 to 5002), which is back to about where it was two months ago. Think of that as lost time, time spent spinning one’s wheels getting nowhere, while people die. How many people? 3,038 in those two months alone. To use a military analogy, it’s as if an army lost that many soldiers while it sat in camp, accomplishing nothing.
It’s a similar story in Texas, Arizona, South Carolina and Alabama—brief progress followed by a reversion to a rate of mortality growth not seen in two months. Total lives lost in these four states in the meantime—6,093. And the toll in unnecessary deaths may well rise higher, since death is a lagging indicator of infections—and missed opportunities.
For the sake of comparison, consider the state of Massachusetts, which over the same two-month period brought its weekly increase down from 18% to 1%. If it had stayed at 18% per week, the state’s total death toll would be 25,304 by now, instead of the actual 8,419. The other states with the worst spring outbreaks also got them under control during that period, saving many thousands of lives. New York and New Jersey moved especially fast, experiencing precipitous drops in new deaths even in early May.
The more effective states have emulated what many countries of the world have accomplished, while the less effective states have contributed to the conspicuously high death rate in the United States as a whole. Also contributing is the lack of federal leadership, which includes the President’s encouragement of states to lift preventive measures prematurely.
Back in March, I titled my earliest post on this topic “No Time to Lose.” That remains as true as ever.
Beneath the Surface 