Who managed COVID-19 better: New Jersey or Sweden?

Let's start by pointing to the fact that New Jersey has the highest COVID-19 death rate per 100,000 people of any state in the United States of America. Those horrible southern states like Florida, Georgia and Texas are way down on the list with about one third the death rate that New Jersey has.

What?!?!?

How come it doesn't seem like that? All you hear on the news is spikes in numbers in those dumb redneck southern states, and we have to quarantine for two weeks if we dare visit those horrible backward places.

The numbers are real. The fear and the panic is not. Obviously every state is doing more testing and the numbers of positive cases that come in every day don't mean that people are getting sick, are hospitalized or dying. There's just more testing and many people test positive with no symptoms whatsoever.

So you may hear crazy conservatives like myself, who were not in favor of lockdowns, point to Sweden as an example of how it should have been handled. But if you check the internet, any mainstream media outlet will point to the fact that Sweden had more deaths than their Nordic neighbors. True, but without the economic calamity all other European countries inflicted on themselves, Sweden had lower deaths rates than many other countries in Europe and yes, even did better than New Jersey.

Sweden has almost 10 million people with 5,880 deaths, while New Jersey has a lower population and over 16,000 deaths. Those numbers are probably inflated for whatever political nonsense Gov. Phil Murphy has up his sleeve, but there they are.

We have the highest death rate in the nation and it far exceeds the country of Sweden, which didn't commit economic suicide and violate its citizens' rights to earn a living and move about as free people. And yet in the latest polling people in this state give Murphy pretty high marks for his handling of the COVID-19 crisis. It was unbelievable that he was voted in, in the first place, and now he gets high marks for totally destroying the state's economy. The trifecta will be if he is re-elected into office next year. And chances are, he probably will be. Unreal.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Dennis Malloy. Any opinions expressed are Dennis' own.