COVID Death Count in States Opposing Mandates

Democracy Labs

4 years ago

COVID death count in states opposing mandates

Politics is temporary, but death is permanent. This map shows states where politics trumps COVID safety measures. Who pays the price?

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Fight disinformation with the facts

Maps, cartoons and videos and make the information engaging and easier to absorb. This story was designed with the very affordable StoryMap app using :

Data from the John Hopkins CoronaVirus Resource Center for the number of COVID active cases and deaths
Details on the OSHA Issues Emergency Temporary Standard for COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing from The National Law Review
Information on Republican Attorney Generals fighting the Osha Mandate from RAGA
State boundaries and population details from esri Living Atlas

Storytelling for advocacy

People are busy. Keep your story short. Here is the framework we used for this story:

An interesting image to grab people’s attention. This is a photo of the cemetery in the SF Presidio.
A map shows the number of deaths by state and county. The color of the state indicates how bad the COVID situation is in terms of deaths per thousand people.
The interactive map reveals county details as you zoom into the map. This is done to not overwhelm the reader at first glance, but to provide more details as needed.
We chose two of the over 25 Republican states fighting OSHA COVID safety measures.
Kristi Noem, Republican Governor of from South Dakota was chosen because she decided to allow a big motorcycle rally in the middle of the COVID pandemic against expert advice.
Dave Yost, Republican Attorney General from Ohio was chosen because he is fighting COVID vaccinations despite being infected himself.

OSHA Standards for COVID-19 Vaccination

“The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued the emergency temporary standard regarding COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing (the “ETS”) previously unveiled in President Biden’s COVID-19 Action Plan. Employers with a total of 100 or more employees firm- or corporate-wide at any time the ETS is in place are bound by the requirements established in the ETS. The ETS does not cover workplaces that are subject to the Safer Workforce Task Force COVID-19 Workplace Safety: Guidance for Federal Contractors and Subcontractors or in settings subject to the OSHA Healthcare ETS. The ETS explicitly preempts state and local laws.” – The National Law Review

Effective messaging

“Nice guys, so they say, finish last. Many of us might instinctively label such a worldview “Machiavellian,” partially for good reason and partially not. It stands as a testament to the insights of the Renaissance-era Florentine political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, expressed with great clarity and succinctness in his books The Prince.

What did Machiavelli actually have to say to humanity? “Machiavelli’s Advice for Nice Guys,” a new animated video from Alain de Botton’s School of Life, highlights the core insight of his work: “that the wicked tend to win. And they do so because they have a huge advantage over the good: they are willing to act with the darkest ingenuity and cunning to further their cause. They are not held back by those rigid opponents of change: principles.” – Open Culture