OH I agree to get a good comparison you would have to go by deaths per 100,000.
And my point was most southern red states had a higher rate per 100,000 then some of the states that distanced .
In the case of NY and NJ , Northeast states they were the first to get hit , they didn't know how to stop it, Trump lied and gave out bad, confusing, contradicting info and the Mayors and Governors of those states didn't know what to do .
so the shut down and had people start putting distance between each other.
NYC alone had 1 woman the first of March ( I believe ) and by the 30th there were 79,000 it spread so fast, that is why they decided to shut things down.