It appears there is a clear correlation between the party affiliation of the state’s Governor and the number of cases a state has. Of the Top 10 states by infection, 8 have Democratic Governors, 1 has a RINO Governor (Baker in Mass) and then there is Florida, which is a unique situation. There is no scientific basis for this, and I think this is evidence of widespread politicalization of the pandemic.

I want to get a couple of arguments out of the way, such as that the blue states are more urban. Florida and New York have similar population densities, Michigan and Georgia have similar population densities, and Louisiana and Texas have similar population densities, yet the states in each of those pairs with Democratic Governors is reporting much higher case numbers per capita than the states with Republican Governors. Most of the population in Georgia, Texas and Florida lives in urban or suburban areas, and those states have the four fastest growing metro areas (Dallas, Houston, Miami and Atlanta) among the nine largest metro areas in the country. These three red states are large states with major population centers, so why are they so far below the states with Democratic governors when it comes to COVID-19 cases?

I would argue that this is less a function of density, or initial hotspots, or any valid reason, and more a function of the fact that the large states with Republican Governors are simply under-reporting cases.

Florida has one of the Trumpiest Governors in the country, and multiple media outlets have noticed issues with the data on the Department of Health website, including here, here, and here. Someone at the Florida Department of Health appears to be reclassifying the cause of death of COVID-19 patients to something else, possibly (probably) so that Florida’s statistics do not look as grim as they really are.

In Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution finally hit the Governor (here) for something that should have been obvious...Georgia is on the verge of a deluge of cases. The only way to get from here to there is if Georgia is currently under-reporting its cases. Georgia, a state of roughly 10.5 million people, is not in the Top 10 states for COVID-19 cases despite the the fact that hospitals in Atlanta and even in southwest Dougherty County have announced they are at capacity. In fact, Georgia has 25% of its total COVID-19 cases requiring hospitalization. While I can not find a good data source for this, I bet this is the highest rate of hospitalizations in the entire country, by a wide margin. Which means either, A) Georgia has a far more virulent strain of the virus in its population (unlikely), or B) Georgia is under-reporting its case numbers (BINGO).

Texas has 2,329 cases as of this morning against almost 29 million people. If this was accurate, Texas would have one of the lowest infection rates in the entire developed world. If these numbers are accurate, Texas would appear to have defeated the virus. Why is Governor Abbott not sharing his “cure” with the rest of the world? Probably because suppressing the data is not really a cure. It would appear that Texas is not testing and is not racing to get results on the tests it does administer (here). Also, Texas appears to be making good data deliberately difficult to get (here).

These are not the only examples. As of mid-week, Missouri had given just over 1,000 tests for the virus. There is a correlation between the party affiliation of the Governor, and the number of COVID-19 cases between reported, and even the mortality rate. I would have hoped that it would be impossible to politicize something like COVID-19 data, but it is. The red states want to be open for business quicker, and more importantly, bad data upsets Trump, so the red states appear to be suppressing the COVID-19 data to varying degrees. This is disastrous from a public health standpoint, and is the basis for the divisive comments in the last few days by Governors Abbott and Desantis blaming the Tri-State area for their pandemic, which they both realize is about to explode on them.