Ontario has about twice the population of Greater Houston (and of Massachusetts), 14M+ to 7M+. So, for Greater Houston, the TMC alone has probably more than twice Ontario's per-capita ICU capacity.
I think from Canada it's hard to get a handle on how COVID has been dealt with in the US as opposed to here ... because on one hand, you guys have had way more COVID than we have (and we have more right now, but that's very likely to reverse again over the next month or two as more Canadians get vaccinated and more Americans don't), and you have all these loud anti-masker/anti-lockdown voices (not to mention outright conspiracy loons, which we have a some of too, but not nearly as many I don't think), including governors, but then on the other hand you have all these states with outdoor mask mandates, and this extreme pro-mask, pro-lockdown tribalism among a lot of Democrats. COVID is politically polarized in Canada to an unhelpful degree, but nothing anywhere near how it is in the US--I've had to travel to my father's house in suburban Toronto a number of times during COVID, and I've been somewhat surprised that outdoor mask-wearing has never caught on there (but it helps in Toronto that the restrictions are coming down from a Conservative provincial government that most Torontonians don't like, so I think what political polarization there is is having some paradoxical effects there)--and in Canada we've tended (on this as on many things) to focus on your right pole and ignore the left one.
I suspect that this relative lack of polarization in Canada at least partly explains why government restrictions/mandates seem to make a difference here, while in the US apparently they don't--we're less dug into our pre-existing positions here and more open to taking direction for a perceived common good (though we're maybe not far behind you in that breaking down). On the other hand, from what I see personally, literally no one is actually taking direction from the government beyond what is being enforced ... but the sample of what I see personally is obviously skewed in several ways, so ... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I guess if you were gonna go re-dividing states according to some balance between population and area, Texas would be what, five, six, seven states? You'd get lots more senators out of it, but somehow I can't see the Great State of Texas going for that. ;)
no subject
I think from Canada it's hard to get a handle on how COVID has been dealt with in the US as opposed to here ... because on one hand, you guys have had way more COVID than we have (and we have more right now, but that's very likely to reverse again over the next month or two as more Canadians get vaccinated and more Americans don't), and you have all these loud anti-masker/anti-lockdown voices (not to mention outright conspiracy loons, which we have a some of too, but not nearly as many I don't think), including governors, but then on the other hand you have all these states with outdoor mask mandates, and this extreme pro-mask, pro-lockdown tribalism among a lot of Democrats. COVID is politically polarized in Canada to an unhelpful degree, but nothing anywhere near how it is in the US--I've had to travel to my father's house in suburban Toronto a number of times during COVID, and I've been somewhat surprised that outdoor mask-wearing has never caught on there (but it helps in Toronto that the restrictions are coming down from a Conservative provincial government that most Torontonians don't like, so I think what political polarization there is is having some paradoxical effects there)--and in Canada we've tended (on this as on many things) to focus on your right pole and ignore the left one.
I suspect that this relative lack of polarization in Canada at least partly explains why government restrictions/mandates seem to make a difference here, while in the US apparently they don't--we're less dug into our pre-existing positions here and more open to taking direction for a perceived common good (though we're maybe not far behind you in that breaking down). On the other hand, from what I see personally, literally no one is actually taking direction from the government beyond what is being enforced ... but the sample of what I see personally is obviously skewed in several ways, so ... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I guess if you were gonna go re-dividing states according to some balance between population and area, Texas would be what, five, six, seven states? You'd get lots more senators out of it, but somehow I can't see the Great State of Texas going for that. ;)