What? I said the natural factors of New York favored an early outbreak, while political factors in Florida favored a late outbreak. That's exactly what you saw: an early outbreak in New York (completely under control, for now), and a later outbreak in Florida.. for which the humongous spike in new cases has not even had one week for the accompanying deaths to catch up
All these Republican states are naively opening up just in time for the October 2020 - March 2021 wave of COVID.
Please be patient (and observant of recent blunders in southern states). Also while you're at it, can you share a screenshot sorted by cases so we see the recent spikes in Southern states? Thanks. Would do it to prove my point, but I'm on a crappy mobile device.
What's important to consider here is not the absolute per capita deaths, which depend on population density, cultural factors and much more than just politics pundits making bad calls, but rather to focus on how the state was doing relative to how political decisions have improved or deteriorated matters subsequently. In the case of New York, restrictions and learning from some mistakes (they were ground zero in America), combined with a stable, sensible political leadership have brought a once raging situation under control. On the contrary, reckless defiance and greedy corporate grabs in the South have turned previously calm situations into raging nightmares.
So, your assertion is that New York got off to an early start and Florida a latter start and that at some point Florida will catch up to and perhaps surpass New York?
Fine. Give me a date by which you project to see this happen.
BTW - that stable, sensible political leadership in New York passed an executive order that said that nursing homes could not refuse to accept covid positive patients. I don't even think they did that in the moss covered wilds of Mississippi. Those fools, they failed to grasp how enlightened this policy was.
Worldometers will not sort by geography, but lets take two example states. Illinois (population 12.7 million, Chicago metro population 9.5M) versus Georgia (population 10.6M, Atlanta metro population 6M). Similar sized population, similar in size geographically, similar levels of urbanization.
Illinois: 7,394 deaths 583 deaths/1M population
Georgia: 3,026 deaths 285 deaths/1M population
These were the fairest comparison I could come up with as I had to find a left leaning state that was not in the northeast corridor (otherwise you'd say that it was spillover effect from NY and NJ) and then a southern state of roughly the same size and level of urbanization.
Now surely you would agree that Illinois is a progressive, right thinking, rational, sensible state that only elects intelligent Democrats and that Georgia is a grubby, backwards, ill educated backwater who's residents are so stupid they routinely elect Republicans.
So maybe ... just maybe ... politics and these reopening have played a smaller role than you imagine.