California is somewhere around 15 from the bottom right now in terms of total deaths per capita (1st link below). It's not clear to me if a chimp could do better than Newsom, but it seems worthy of debate. Here's my opening argument: I don't think a chimp would dine out at an upper crusty $450/plate restaurant during a pandemic without a mask (2nd link below).
Advantage: chimp.
You didn't mention New York, but I'll go there anyway. I don't think a chimp would have sent people recovering from covid to nursing homes (3rd link below).
Advantage: chimp
I also don't think a chimp would run around groping and kissing state employees (I'd concede I've seen very few scientific studies on this, however).
Advantage: chimp (subject to scientific review of chimp groping behavior)
Now that everyone across the political spectrum is torqued off at me, I do believe politicians of all stripes deserve to be lampooned from time to time. The fine art of insulting politicians seems to be on the decline in this country. Here's an example of the lost art from Mark Twain, albeit not directed at a specific politician: "Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of congress; but I repeat myself." (I stopped thinking of myself as being associated with a political party many years ago, which eliminates a lot of cognitive dissonance associated with trying to rationalize the actions of any given politician)
On a somewhat serious note, there's no doubt that the covid waves come and go. A lot of it is geographic. You can see this on the various hotspot tracking maps. And of course at least some of the anti-mask/vaccine attitudes of a geographic area are "baked in" regardless of who's governor. The number of variables is too long to even try to list here. Still, to my mind, the total per capita death rate is a better overall measure than the infection or death rate at one point in time.
In terms of surges in places with high vaccination rates, Israel did have a surge, but the rate of serious cases among the vaccinated was much less than the unvaccinated. I realize people will debate the effect of the vaccination rate in Israel, but even in Israel only 58% of the total population is vaccinated:
>>>That means only 58% of Israel's total citizenry is fully vaccinated. Experts say that's not nearly high enough. "We have a very large fraction of our population who are paying the price for a small fraction of the population who did not go to get the vaccine," said
Eran Segal of the Weizmann Institute of Science, who advises the Israeli government on COVID-19. Unvaccinated people helped fuel the rapid spread of the virus while the country remained open for business in recent months with few serious restrictions. "That will lead to mass infection, which is exactly what we are seeing now," said Segal.<<<
Iceland was also in the news a few months ago as an example of a highly vaccinated country that experienced a surge in cases. However, the infection rate among the unvaccinated was twice as high as among the vaccinated (4th link below). Last I heard, I don't think there has been a single death of a vaccinated person in Iceland. Granted, the population of Iceland is very small, so it's not clear if these numbers can be extrapolated.
Vaccines are not 100% effective, but it's hard to see how Israel and Iceland would have done better without any vaccines whatsoever.
As of March 2023, Arizona had the highest COVID death rate in the U.S., with 455 deaths per 100,000 population. Hawaii had the lowest death rate.
www.statista.com
A meal at the French Laundry? A junket to Maui? California’s Democratic leaders have put strict measures in place. If only they would follow them.
www.nytimes.com
NEW YORK (AP) — More than 9,000 recovering coronavirus patients in New York state were released from hospitals into nursing homes early in the pandemic under a controversial directive that was scrapped amid criticism it accelerated outbreaks, according to new records obtained by The Associated Press
apnews.com
What happened? Here are six lessons learned from Israel's experience — and one looming question for the future of the pandemic.
www.npr.org
Social media users are using data from Iceland’s health ministry to make it appear vaccines aren’t working in the country of 360,000 people.
apnews.com