It strikes me as difficult to compare states without looking at a LOT of specific differences.
That was my point.
But some folks want to do victory laps over other states to prove their political point.
At least the demographics of Florida vs California are more similar than trying to compare Illinois to Wisconsin and Iowa, which are LIGHT YEARS apart. So although I can point to demographic differences (such as multigenerational households due to the high cost of living here) between FL and CA, there is at least some commonality. For Illinois compared to Wisconsin and Iowa, there is NO commonality because of the dominance of Chicago on Illinois' demographics. Illinois would be better compared with FL, NY, GA or CA, other states with megalopolises.
It's also not particularly fair to compare "everything is open" Florida to "locked down gulag" California... Orange County CA is open and has been for months. Our county leaders basically announced that they weren't going to enforce any of the lockdown orders. Restaurants, barbers / hair salons, nail salons, etc have remained open. Kids have been in school since the fall. One of my local breweries forces you to buy a bag of chips to be considered a "restaurant" rather than a bar, but they're open. Now, that's not all of California, of course, but it's 3.1M people.
So yeah, sure, Florida can pat themselves on the back for being 25th in the nation in Deaths/1M people... Great. There's 50 states, so that's a 50% grade. Giving them an A+ for their handling is grading on one HELL of curve.
