Florida and California have taken dramatically different approaches to dealing with the spread of the coronavirus, but in both states key statistics have improved in recent weeks.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has imposed tougher regulations, most recently a statewide housing order on December 3 that lasted throughout the holiday season.
The order, which was lifted on Jan. 25, went as far as forbidding outdoor dining, beauty services, and religious services.
In the Sunshine State, on the other hand, measures were taken to ensure that businesses were kept open.
In September, Gov. Ron DeSantis prevented local councils from imposing restrictions that would force restaurants and bars to operate at less than half capacity.
He also signed an executive order barring companies from being fined for defying COVID-19-related orders.
DeSantis argued on Sunday that the state was “focused on uplifting people,” while “lockdown states” were “putting people out of business.”
“There are a lot of things we’ve done for COVID, but at the same time we’ve lifted our state, we’ve saved our economy, and I think we’ll be the first to get out of the gate one day. he told Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures.”
But despite the two states’ different approaches this winter, they’ve produced similar results.
Both states struggled with a rise in the number of cases around January 1, with the number of infections dropping a few weeks later.
They both now see an average of between 200 and 400 cases per million people, and have each reported a decrease in recent days, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
Likewise, the two states have also seen improvement with hospital admissions.
About a month ago, California reported a rate of 56 hospitalizations per 100,000 residents, while Florida saw a rate of 35, the data shows.
Now the Golden State records 24 hospital admissions per 100,000 people, while Florida reports about 22, data shows.
California currently leads the nation in total cases, but it has nearly double the number of Florida residents.
When the cases are adjusted for the population, their numbers are about the same.
California has registered about 8,822 cases per 100,000 people, while Florida has about 8,508 for the same population, data shows.