Thread by @paulkrugman

Can Ron DeSantis effectively challenge Trump? I have no idea. But one thing I hope doesn't get forgotten in the horse-race coverage is DeSantis's major achievement as governor: the unnecessary death of around 20,000 Floridians 1/

Here's how I get that number. Compare Covid deaths by state since Jan. 1, 2021 — roughly when vaccines became widely available. (2020 comparisons distorted by early carnage in New York areas when we didn't know it was airborne) 2/

By state, deaths since then are

FL 59,170
CA 70,565
NY 35,247

But CA has a much larger population than FL, NY a slightly smaller one. 3/

Adjusted for population, the Florida-equivalent death toll was

FL 59,170
CA 39,217
NY 39,551

So states that didn't have governors promoting Covid disinformation and anti-tax propaganda lost far fewer people — the equivalent of ~20K excess in FL 4/

Why didn't DeSantis pay a price for this? Because Covid victims die out of the public eye, offscreen as it were. A resident of Florida is ~20X as likely to die gratuitously from Covid as a resident of NY is to be murdered, but crime makes headlines while other deaths don't 5/

And no, it's not about freedom. We're not talking about lockdowns and restrictions at this point, just about lifesaving shots that DeSantis deterred people from getting. Truly awesome 6/