States of failure

We have bad news for Florida, which tallied a record 15,000 new coronavirus cases Sunday, as well as the 38 other states where the virus is spreading at uncontainable rates and deaths are beginning to rise as the virus jumps into nursing homes.

You’ve screwed up royally. Your governors ignored the best evidence of public health experts and the searing experience of New York and reopened too quickly. Before you could confirm COVID-19 was getting under control. Before you had the testing capacity to manage outbreaks.

Now you are suffering what the CDC calls “significant, uncontrolled transmission” of the virus.

The only hope now is to go back to square one, as California just did: Shut places where the pathogen spreads until cases dwindle enough to let hospitals and testing facilities and contact tracers get in front of the eight-ball.

Unless, with eyes wide open, Florida’s Ron DeSantis, Arizona’s Doug Ducey and others really believe that deaths in the thousands are an acceptable cost of economic growth. Do they?

DeSantis won’t even impose a statewide mask mandate, much less scratch Jacksonville hosting August’s Republican National Convention.

Ducey rushed from lockdown April 30 to fully reopening by May 15, while new cases were growing. Did he think the laws of science were suspended, just for Arizona?

Even as President Trump aims to discredit Dr. Tony Fauci, the truth proves the good doctor right: States that heeded expert guidance are on the mend. States that followed Trump are getting sicker by the day.