America’s two largest states are fighting covid-19 differently

IF CRISIS REVEALS character, as the saying goes, it can also reveal contrast. In America, the two most populous states—California (the largest Democratic state) and Texas (its Republican rival)—have adopted strikingly different approaches to managing the pandemic. How well they have fared is significant to the health of the nation, since one-fifth of Americans live in the two states. Their relative fortunes also show how hard it is for states, which are in charge of America’s response to covid-19, to get the trade-offs right between lockdowns, economic damage and the spread of the virus—and show the limits of public policy when state borders are porous.

Texas, ever sceptical of government, has taken a lighter-touch approach to public-health measures. Last year Greg Abbott, the governor, was slow to issue a mask mandate and fought cities and counties that wanted to implement stricter rules. Texas did issue a stay-at-home-order, but it was one of the first states to reopen, doing so even earlier than Donald Trump’s White House suggested. Cases spiked.