id quibble on it being effectiveness of Biden;s outreach as much as it was Trump's lightning rodding so much dislike - there were a lot of older people and women who voted Trump in 16 and were with him up until his catastrophic virus mismanagement
ill never forget interviews with Florida retirees in late March carrying on softball games with high fives etc - and - asked if they were fearful and why they were acting as normal - telling the interviewer they trusted Trump. "he;s the President - he should know"
a month later Covid deaths started to really ramp there - and you just now that all across the country there were many people who lost friends and loved ones and some would have had their eyes opened.
I was watching the interview absolutely aghast at how obvious what was coming was. I;d already worked out that it was generally about a 6 week contagion curve in those early days.
What trump and the red state governors completely seemed to miss is that it was 2-3 weeks after infection that cases started to be identified - 3-4 weeks before deaths started to significantly ramp
So by the time a covid hot spot became obvious - the transmission spread was ~6 weeks ahead of where the data was spiking. They were treating it like it was 2-3 weeks
Which is why the states that came out of lockdown in May were particularly bad for the US overall.
because that then sent virus back into places like New York and surrounds as people returned to those areas - partially or even completely undoing the benefit of their lockdowns
from that point it was a dumpster fire of ping ponging carriers.
no clear firewalls - just constant reinfection risk especially because a huge segment of the population was treating COVID like it was 15 going to 0
thats the thing in particular about a virus with such a high % of asymptomatic carriers - the virus is never as contained as you think it is if you are allowing even minimal population movement
especially as people under 40 started to treat it as if they were immune because mortality rates were very low in younger ages. they were having COVID parties so they could get infected and get it out of the way.
