Covid and the elderly

Looking back over the pandemic, it is instructive to compare Florida with California. Florida opened schools to in persons instruction in the fall of 2020. Florida was the third highest state for in school student days and California was last. Florida returned to indoor dinning and open beaches while California remained closed. Florida opposed masks and vaccine mandates but not California. Disney World opened in July of 2020 but Disney land stayed closed until April of 2021. Florida as a larger population of over age 65 residence with 21% vs California at 15%. Both states have much in common. Large population, nice weather, beautiful beaches, celebrities, Disney parks and lots of citrus trees. The two states had very different strategies for handling the pandemic but it's hard to tell which came out better after a thorough look at the data. Both states concentrated on vaccinating the elderly with both achieving a 91% rate. This is likely the most important reason why the states had similar Covid results. The biggest difference between the states will come to fruition in the next few years as more data is presented showing the damage done to children who were kept out of school. Common sense told us that the real danger is to the elderly and that is where the emphasis should have been from day one. While children under 18 represented 19% of Covid cases they accounted for only .26% of deaths and 75% of those children had underlying health problems. Lessons learned for the next time....concentrate on the sick and elderly.