A recent Fox News article claims that former President Donald Trump and California's Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom have been "echo[ing] each other's attacks in [an] effort to take down" Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the undeclared candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Reporter Aaron Kliegman uncritically quotes Newsom, from an interview last month in Florida with podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, that the Sunshine State "had fifty-eight percent higher per capita death rates under COVID" than California.
Additionally, the Fox article points out that Trump, the declared 2024 presidential candidate, has "argued that other Republican governors handled the pandemic more effectively than DeSantis did."
Both explosive accusations are erroneous.
In actuality, Florida's COVID overall death rate is 34% higher than California's, and not the humongous 55% disseminated by Newsom and Fox News, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and U.S. Census Bureau.
As of April 28, 2023, Florida has suffered 80,000 COVID deaths and California 107,000, according to the CDC's authoritative Provisional Death Counts.
The Census Bureau's average populations, for April 2020, July 2021, and July 2022, are 21,870,000 for Florida, and 39,237,000 for California.
Significantly, during the COVID pandemic between April 2020 and July 2022, Florida boomed by 707,000 residents, or 3.3%, from 21,538,000 to 22,245,000.
Conversely, California plunged by 509,000 residents, or 1.3% from 39,538,000 to 39,029,000.
America increased by a miniscule 1,838,000 people, or six-tenths of 1%, from 331,450,000 to 333,288,000.
Therefore, Florida has suffered 366 COVID deaths per 100,000 residents, which, to repeat, is 34% higher than California's 274 per 100,000.
America's rate is 339 deaths per 100,000, based on 1,128,000 COVID deaths from an average population of 332,257,000 between 2020 and 2022.
However, comparisons of COVID death rates, among the 50 states and the nation, must control for their widely disparate percentages of senior citizens, who on July 1, 2022, accounted for 55,992,000, or 16.8%, of America's 333,288,000 people.
But seniors currently account for 853,000 of the nation's 1,128,000 COVID deaths, or a grossly disproportionate 76%.
And 21.1% of Florida's residents are 65 years of age or older, while California's seniors are only 15.2%.
Thus, Florida, with 4,615,000 residents 65 years of age and older, and with 60,000 COVID deaths, has a rate of 1,301 per 100,000 since January 2020.
California, with 5,932,000 residents 65 years of age and older, and with 77,000 COVID deaths, has a statistically identical 1,291 deaths per 100,000.
Consequently, Florida's unadjusted, total death rate of 366 per 100,000 residents, as compared to California's 273, is entirely attributable to the Sunshine State's senior population that is proportionally 39% higher than Golden State's.
America, with 55,819,000 people 65 years of age or older (16.8% of total population), and with 853,000 COVID deaths, has a significantly higher death rate of 1,528 per 100,000.
Secondly, former President Trump's accusation, that Florida performed worse than other Republican-governed states, is also untrue. In addition to Florida, America's most populous states, with Republican governors during the COVID pandemic, are Texas, Ohio and Georgia.
Texas, with 103,000 COVID deaths and an average population of 29,578,000, has 348 deaths per 100,000 residents. But the Lone Star State, with a very low 13.1% of its population 65 years of age and older, or 3,875,000, and with 70,000 deaths, has 1,806 deaths per 100,000.
Georgia, with 36,000 COVID deaths and an average population of 10,804,000, has 333 per 100,000. But the Peach State, with only 14.7% of its population 65 years of age or older, or 1,588,000, and with 25,000 deaths, has 1,574 deaths per 100,000.
Ohio's average population between April 2020 and July 2022 was 11,773,000, and with 49,000 COVID deaths, has an unadjusted rate 416 per 100,000. But the Buckeye State, with 17.8% of its population 65 years of age or older, or 2,096,000, and with 39,000 deaths, has 1,861 deaths per 100,000.
To sum up, in the crucial 65 years of age and older cohort, the death rate for California is 1,291 per 100,000; Florida, 1,301; Nation, 1,528; Georgia, 1,574; Texas, 1,806; and Ohio, 1,861.
Thus, these rates of the four jurisdictions (excluding California) are between 17% and 43% higher than Florida's.
Thirdly, Kliegman's deplorable Fox article also notes that Trump has "argued that Florida under DeSantis fared worse than New York with a high COVID death rate."
In fact, New York state, with 3,485,000 senior citizens, and with 63,000 COVID deaths in this cohort, has a rate of 1,808 per 100,000, which is 39% higher than Florida's 1,301.
The CDC's death counts list NYC and the rest of the state separately, and they have a combined 79,000 total deaths, which are only 1,000 fewer than Florida, which has almost 2 million more residents.
Finally, between January 5, 2020 and January 20, 2021, when Trump was in the White House, 450,000 Americans died from COVID, as compared to 678,000 during Joe Biden's catastrophic 28-month presidency.
However, during the second presidential debate in late October 2020, Biden vowed to "shut down the virus, not the country."
Undoubtedly, Biden has egregiously failed to deliver on COVID deaths and the economy.
Mark Schulte is a retired New York City schoolteacher and mathematician who has written extensively about science and the history of science. Read Mark Schulte's Reports — More Here.
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