How'd that work out?

 We get questions 'all the time' about this, that, and the other.   And sometimes the replies may not seem timely, but 'hey, I'm doing the best that I can'

One topic that has raged this month is RE-OPENING SCHOOLS.   

We've commented in two earlier posts about the prospects and initial reality for universities.   See August 4, "Some say, 'the ship has sailed'?" and August 19, "Yes, Matilda, the ship has sailed"

And we're very concerned for our grand-daughter who is an eighth grade science teacher in Shreveport Louisiana.   She reports that her principal is one of those who still believes (fervently) that Covid is a hoax

So it might be worth looking back a bit at a couple of 'leading states' whose governors think (or at least thought) this was a hoax--Texas and Florida.

Here's the news clips for those two states at the end of April

Trump followed on May 4 on Fox News, reported out on May 5:

So, let's look at the choropleths (the geo-spatial maps) for Florida and Texas, up until these bold decisions, and what happened over the next three months.  First, the Confirmed Cases data:

And, GASP, did it 'stay in the cities' or did it spread across the entire state?  Recall that ORANGE is bad.  These maps are of Cases per capita.

I'd call that a 'clean sweep' -- on May 1, only 4 counties out of 67 had more than 300 cases/100,000.  By August 5, every county in Florida had more than 1,000 cases per 100,000 residents.  Whew!

How about Texas and its 254 counties?

Wow!.  On May 1, nine counties out of 254 had more than 300 cases/100K; only 1 had 1,000+.   Fast forward after "we're safe to re-open" and only 5 counties have less than 100 cases/100K, and 10 more are less than 300.   A whopping 130 counties have more than 1000 cases per 100K residents.  

HOW'D THAT WORK OUT?

Pretty hard to defend the 'hoax' idea when the fires are starting to burn in 'your town'