Red and Blue America are not experiencing the same Pandemic

The way Democratic governors were responding versus Republican governors was striking. Today Florida's Republican governor ordered that inbound air passengers from NY and NJ must quarantine. Nevermind that he kept FL beaches open, gleefully taking in all those tourist dollars from spring breakers and then dispatching them to their homes in other states.

Our Democrat governor in NC has been making a daily press conference and early on shut schools - which are now closed until mid-May and restricted gatherings. He shut restaurant dining rooms several days ago and today shut many other businesses including hair salons. (Selfishly, I'm glad I kept my appointment early last week at my one stylist hair salon.) When I started stocking up and really paying attention to this, no one here was and no one was talking about it. That has changed though and even many Republicans I know well are on board with all of the restrictions. When I was in line outside the butcher shop this morning, everyone was keeping their distance from the next person in line. They only let in a few people at a time. It was almost eerie in Walmart as I realized there were no side conversations. I swear that is where all the seniors go to gossip - including my mother before this started. Today we all bustled around getting our stuff not even speaking to each other.

Politics, Foxnews and just other priorities made Corona something that was happening to other people and not us. Geography has a lot to do with it. As the article implied, travelers are more prevalent in the bigger cities. However, time of the year affected that greatly. There are plenty of people here who travel abroad but not in January or February. If this had hit in the summer, the spread would be even faster. The most global company in our area just relocated their headquarters to Charlotte. The thing that really got everyone's attention here was when the ACC tournament was canceled. Then churches canceled services as they couldn't comply with the governor's orders. If you can't curse the ref of Saturday's basketball game and pray on Sunday, something is seriously wrong in NC.

I definitely see the difference and I am calling it out on fb and when they can't argue me with facts, they resort to name calling. Dumbasses.

There are people out there who would die “to own teh libs!”

It’s...something. God help us all.

Here in ND I think people are getting on board with how serious this virus is. We have a Republican governor (of course) and even though our test positive numbers are really low he has gotten out in front of this and closed schools, restaurants and bars. Lots of other businesses like the malls, the casinos and private non essential businesses have all voluntarily closed. So hopefully we will lessen the long term impact to our state.

Just 5 minutes ago, a coworker posted on FB that the TV stations should give more airtime to our NH Governor ( because he’s so upbeat and less to the doom and gloom like Charlie Baker (MA) and Cuomo (NY). She’s a Trump fan. She really thinks this is not that bad, and was fully prepared to hop an airplane this week and go on vacation. She cancelled only because the airlines were stopping flights. She feels this is way out of proportion. We live on the MA border. She better hope the Governor of MA us taking this seriously. My husband works in MA and is considered essential. I am worried for him. To read this bullshit from someone who can work at home and who’s husband is retired, and finances aren’t a big issue Infuriates me.

I agree.  He has been the most notable exception.  He was mentioned in the article the OP shared so I didn't mention him in my post but I know that Ohio took strong measures early.