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Coronavirus update: Beach states may be the new hot spots
By Kent R. Kroeger (May 28, 2020)
“I don’t believe I am costing lives at all,” said Missouri Governor Mike Parson (R) in late March as he rejected calls for a statewide stay-at-home (SaH) order. “The effects that (a statewide SaH) will have on everyday people are dramatic. That means businesses will close, people will lose their jobs, the economy will be in worse shape than ever.”
At the time Governor Parson said those words, eight Missourians had lost their lives to COVID-19. Two months later, the death toll stands at 705 (or about 115 people per 1 million Missouri residents), putting the Show-Me state at 26th among the 50 states (plus District of Columbia) in the relative number of COVID-19 deaths. Missouri is ranked 37th in the relative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at 2,088 per 1 million people.
In other words, Missouri’s performance so far in containing the coronavirus is roughly average to above-average.
It can’t emphasized enough that this pandemic is still an ongoing and many of the Middle America states that refused to impose stay-at-home orders, such as Iowa, Nebraska and Arkansas, are now in the middle of their first wave of cases (as opposed to states like New York and New Jersey that are near the end of the first wave).
