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Figuring out which states had the best pandemic performance can be tough for a few reasons. One of the biggest is that standards about when to label something a COVID death varied from state to state. Also, there are arguments about whether certain policies may have done more overall harm than good (e.g., tight lockdowns that may have saved people from COVID, but resulted in more indirect deaths from isolation, by way of suicide or drug overdoses).
There is a way around those problems, though. Simply compare the number of people who died in each state to the number who were expected to die based on pre-pandemic mortality rates in the state. For example, if, on average, 0.8% of the population of a state died per year, between 2015 and 2019, and then 1.0% died per year during the pandemic, that means people were dying at a 25% higher rate than normal.
Many of those extra deaths may be by way of indirect mechanisms (e.g., overwhelmed hospitals having more traffic-accident victims dying because ICU's were full of COVID patients), but either way it implicates state policy decisions.
So, in those terms, which places were most successful at minimizing the mortality impact of the pandemic on their people? Answers to follow.
There is a way around those problems, though. Simply compare the number of people who died in each state to the number who were expected to die based on pre-pandemic mortality rates in the state. For example, if, on average, 0.8% of the population of a state died per year, between 2015 and 2019, and then 1.0% died per year during the pandemic, that means people were dying at a 25% higher rate than normal.
Many of those extra deaths may be by way of indirect mechanisms (e.g., overwhelmed hospitals having more traffic-accident victims dying because ICU's were full of COVID patients), but either way it implicates state policy decisions.
So, in those terms, which places were most successful at minimizing the mortality impact of the pandemic on their people? Answers to follow.