A Comparison Of States Reopening and Remaining Locked Down

A number of states (like Florida, Georgia, SC, Tenn, and Ohio are reopening for businesses while others like NC, Va, and Michigan remain locked down.  There's a wide variation in these states for cases, hospitalizations and fatalities:

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The ones to the left have taken first steps to reopening while the ones on the right (NC, MI, VA) have not.  As we saw in yesterday's post,  NC's COVID experience so far has been far milder than many other states. 

I ran a comparison of COVID fatalities to date vs flu deaths in the 2018-2019 season and saw an interesting result:

While the US as a whole has had more COVID deaths than flu deaths as have some states like Michigan,  in other states like NC and many of those opening, the seasonal flu has accounted for many more fatalities than COVID so far. 

The COVID experience seems to be very different from state to state.  If you only read reports of the nation's experience and of your own state it seems as if both are being struck hard; but looking at the big variations between states explains how different states have taken (and will take) different approaches to managing the pandemic and reopening for business.