How Does Texas Compare With Other States For COVID-19 Safety?

I'll tell you straight up at the start. According to this study Texas isn't doing very well at keeping us safe from COVID-19.

The folks over at WalletHub recently did a survey to see which states were the safest when it came to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. They looked at things like vaccination rates, positive testing rates, hospitalization and death rates, even estimated transmission rates. When it's all added up Texas was nowhere near the top ten safest states. To be fair we weren't in the bottom ten either. We placed 37th out of 51 (they counted D.C. by itself) and Oklahoma, our friends to the North, placed 39th.

Here are the top ten overall safest states as far as protection from COVID-19 goes.

1  Vermont

2  Massachusetts

3  Connecticut

4  Hawaii

5  New Mexico

6  Rhode Island

7  New Hampshire

8  Maine

9  District of Columbia

10  Delaware

In the individual categories Texas came in 33rd in vaccination rate, 40th in positive testing rate, 38th in hospitalization rate, 34th in death rate, and 32nd in transmission rate.

If these numbers are correct, we've got some work to do. Perhaps that's why President Biden is talking about going neighborhood to neighborhood and even door to door to encourage people to be vaccinated. As if the current, every time you turn on the television someone is trying to convince you to get the shot campaign isn't already enough.

When the study took into consideration the state's political leanings based on how it voted in the 2020 presidential election the average ranking of a Blue (Democratic) state was 16.08 while the average ranking of a Red (Republican) state was 36.32.

At the bottom of the list, the ten overall least safe states were:

42  Idaho

43 Florida

44 Mississippi

45  Louisiana

46  Arizona

47  Wyoming

48  West Virginia

49  Nevada

50  Arkansas

51  Missouri

Survey results based on information available as of July 7th, 2021.

You can see the full results and methodology of the study on WalletHub's website here.

As always, do your own research and make up your own mind on how you're personally going to respond to the current COVID-19 situation.