For those wondering what a world looks like without stay at home orders....
As of Wednesday (April 8), officials in eight remaining states have yet to issue full stay-at-home orders. Those states are Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. Officials in three other states — Alabama, Missouri, and South Carolina — only issued stay-at-home orders within a few days after being resistant to enacting such a measure in the weeks prior.
Conventional wisdom would suggest that those states, due to their inaction, would reap the consequences in the form of higher COVID-19 death toll projections. But that has not been the case.
According to data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which tracks the coronavirus outbreak in each individual state, predicting its death toll and hospital resource usage, all but one of the states in question have downgraded their death toll projections.
On March 27, the the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation published a studydetailing the projected death toll for all 50 states. Listed below are charts showing the March 27 projections alongside the revised projections from Wednesday.
All of the states have had their death toll projections lowered, except one: North Dakota. But it was not immediately obvious as to why North Dakota had its projection raised. As of Wednesday, the state has only reported four deaths as a result of COVID-19.
In addition to downgraded death toll projections, the states also saw significant downgrades for their projected hospital resource use, which include intensive care unit beds and ventilators.
As of Wednesday (April 8), officials in eight remaining states have yet to issue full stay-at-home orders. Those states are Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. Officials in three other states — Alabama, Missouri, and South Carolina — only issued stay-at-home orders within a few days after being resistant to enacting such a measure in the weeks prior.
Conventional wisdom would suggest that those states, due to their inaction, would reap the consequences in the form of higher COVID-19 death toll projections. But that has not been the case.
According to data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which tracks the coronavirus outbreak in each individual state, predicting its death toll and hospital resource usage, all but one of the states in question have downgraded their death toll projections.
On March 27, the the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation published a studydetailing the projected death toll for all 50 states. Listed below are charts showing the March 27 projections alongside the revised projections from Wednesday.
All of the states have had their death toll projections lowered, except one: North Dakota. But it was not immediately obvious as to why North Dakota had its projection raised. As of Wednesday, the state has only reported four deaths as a result of COVID-19.
In addition to downgraded death toll projections, the states also saw significant downgrades for their projected hospital resource use, which include intensive care unit beds and ventilators.
