I think part of what is missed is the temporal nature of the pandemic - Florida is doing quite poorly now when we have treatments and knowledge of how to slow COVID whereas NY and MA did poorly early on.
Yes, that's a factor. Also, vaccination. However, both states did have substantial mortality before 2021, and any serious analysis has to take the timing into account.
Ultimately, however, the top-line facts are opposed to the narrative that TX and FL did substantially worse because of their choices. They did not.
