One: Maybe the states with fewer cases are just doing less testing.

It’s true that southern states have done less testing by and large than northern ones have, but Louisiana ranks 15th out of 50 states in tests per capita and it’s seen its cases decline for months.

Even in states with limited testing, the positivity rate should give us some clue as to whether cases are rising or falling.

Two: Maybe there’s more natural immunity in states that have adopted fewer restrictions, making it more difficult for the virus to spread at this late stage of the pandemic relative to the ease with which it’s spreading in pro-lockdown states.

states in COVID cases per capita, suggesting that relatively few people there had been infected until recently.

Texas and California may have had more cases per capita than Michigan but they’ve had far fewer than New York and New Jersey, both of which have seen cases rise lately (although not the way Michigan has).

If you’d rather compare deaths per capita as a metric of how many infections a particular state has seen, note that New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts comprise the top three among U.S.

states whereas Texas ranks 24th and California ranks 31st.

Deaths aren’t a perfect apples-to-apples comparison between states since some (New York and New Jersey) had their deaths “frontloaded” at the start of the pandemic, when hospital treatments for COVID were primitive, while others saw more hospitalizations later, when doctors were better able to save people.