We've been living #Covid19 for over a year now. Multiple regional rises and falls. It's hard for me to even muster the effort when I see a report leading (leading!) with "testing rates" to explain disparities in current state trends.

Brief thread https://twitter.com/TODAYshow/status/1380134029765263360

Can nobody in media/politics see anything other than (1) government mandates, (2) adherence to those mandates/masks, and (3) variants (more recently)? Are those it? Good = *must* be doing better in the above?

(though he did note FL's gentler rise even w/ high % of variants).

The myopic focus on "cases" is maddening. Percent of people testing positive is also trending down in many of the same southern states. And with decreasing tests, that's *harder* to do than when you test tons more. Here was the trend a couple weeks ago: https://twitter.com/TheLawyerCraig/status/1375521505409445888?s=20

Testing, mandates, and behavior also doesn't explain hospitalization trends, unless you think folks in the SE & SW are "masking harder" than the NE/MW (this data was as of a week ago, but would still look about the same today): https://twitter.com/TheLawyerCraig/status/1377279565458984965?s=20

Variants? Well, they don't explain regional disparities very well either: https://twitter.com/TheLawyerCraig/status/1379053890927263745?s=20

Of course it's likely a confluence of factors. But if you're still wearing horse blinders to the regional + seasonal + climatological nature of #Covid19 at this point in the game—to the point where it's not even mentioned—then I truly don't know what to tell you.