I live in Louisiana, Texas's neighbor to the East. Mardi Gras gave us a head start on most other American states. California was first. Washington was second. However, Mardi Gras flooded the streets of the New Orleans French Quarter with revelers. Two weeks later, we were off to a roaring start. For several weeks, we had the highest infection rate on Earth. However, our Governor and most other elected officials fought like Trojans to bring the infection to a heel.
Most of the media attention at the time was going to New York--almost exclusively to New York City. After all, New York is an international capitol of trade and culture. New York City's population is more than double that of the entire State of Louisiana. However, New York came together with its neighboring states of New Jersey and Connecticut to fight COVID-19 on a unified front. When these states announced a plan, usually accompanied by Maryland down the Atlantic Coast, Louisiana made a similar announcement.
It was a difficult fight, but within a few weeks Texas ran us down and zoomed past us in COVID-19 infections--never to look back. Texas was not the only one. When most other American states saw that COVID-19 was getting out of control, Florida's beaches were covered with college students shoulder-to-shoulder in their swimsuits. When Florida infections started to noticeably increase, what was their first response? Nothing. What was their second response? To place a quarantine on visitors from New York and then a quarantine on visitors from Louisiana.
We had been fighting COVID-19 with everything we had. They had been lounging on the beach. Yet they blamed us for their infections. Texas followed a similar strategy. After months of doing nothing, they implemented a quarantine on Louisiana visitors. Eventually, both Florida and Texas relented and announced social distancing, but that lasted for a hot minute in each state. I have not not visited Florida recently, but my visit to Texas showed me that Texas business owners, at least, were not nearly as stupid. During a stop for lunch at a fast food restaurant, I was pleased to see that the restaurant continued its ban on dine-in sales.
The United States and South Korea both had their first COVID-19 cases on the same day. South Korea has wrestled the pandemic to the ground. Where is the United States? The United States has lost more fatalities to the pandemic than we lost to combat and disease in World War I. At its peak, New York suffered 5,000 new cases of COVID-19 per day. As of this writing, Florida is suffering about 10,000 new cases per day--twice that of New York at its worst. And Texas? Texas is suffering more than 8,000 new cases per day. This is better than Florida, but it is a disaster by any rational assessment. It is a disaster every day.
And, the real tragedy is that Houston, Texas has the largest health science center on Earth. To his credit, Texas Governor Gregory Abbott has finally started to take the pandemic seriously. He is reversing his previous lackadaisical approach to the pandemic. The governor of Florida is taking a more serious approach, as well. The governors may have seen the errors of their ways, but not all politicians are so enlightened.
Weeks ago, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said: "There are worst things than death." Now that the Governor is singing a different tune, Patrick is fit to be tied. You can't fix stupid.
Unfortunately, Darwin can.