Florida’s Covid-19 Deaths Might Rival New York's

People keep saying not to worry so much about the Covid-19 surge in Florida, because it isn’t killing a lot of people. I’m not buying it. And I’m sorry to predict that by early August, deaths in Florida will be almost as bad as New York at its worst.

Florida and New York have similar populations (21.5 million and 19.5 million, respectively), so it’s possible to compare the two states using raw numbers rather than rates. New York’s worst daily case count was 11,434 on April 15, and its worst seven-day average was 9,909 on April 10. Florida had 15,300 new cases on July 12, and a 7-day average of 9,957. In other words, by this measure, Florida is as bad as New York ever was.