I was reviewing the COVID-19 statistics at Worldometers.info, as I generally do on a daily basis, and today I looked at something I had not previously: the states with lowest mortality due to COVID-19. Here are the 41st through 50th in the rankings:
| Rank | State | Deaths/1M pop |
| 41 | Kansas | 162 |
| 42 | West Virginia | 132 |
| 43 | Utah | 129 |
| 44 | Oregon | 111 |
| 45 | Montana | 104 |
| 46 | Maine | 99 |
| 47 | Vermont | 93 |
| 48 | Wyoming | 71 |
| 49 | Hawaii | 56 |
| 50 | Alaska | 55 |
A couple of things leaped out at me. The first is that those states compare pretty favorably with Germany which has been said to have done a very good at job at managing the pandemic. The second thing is that those states are, if not the most white the least black states in the U. S. Hawaii’s percentage of blacks is 3.08%, Alaska’s is 4.27%, Vermont’s is .87%. They aren’t the richest states or the poorest states or the states with the greatest access to health care or the states with the least access to health care.
It’s just too much to be a coincidence. If you’ve been radicalized with respect to race, as many educated blacks have, you probably think that’s due to systemic racism. You might think it’s pre-existing conditions (which might be a consequence of systemic racism). It’s certainly due to something.
I’ll beat my drum again. We’ve got to put more resources where they’re most needed and that’s in black communities.
Seems to correspond to low population density too.
The population densities of Hawaii and Illinois are about the same. The population densities of Vermont and Mississippi are about the same.
“put more resources”
Such as?
It depends on what the problem is. If the problem is inadequate access to health care, put up mobile clinics and hospitals. If the problem is inadequate compliance, put together a targeted public service announcement program. And so on.