The AARP website has a good article to help you sort through the question of which states have mask mandates, and which don't. The picture turns out not to be as neat and clean as all that, but for the most part, US red states lead the way in dropping mask mandates, and they're not suffering a huge blowup in COVID deaths as a result.
It would be nice to see the US, as a whole, follow the UK's example, but US federalism may make that impossible. Trump, consistent with federalism and the US Constitution's 10th Amendment, let the individual states each figure out their own way to handle the pandemic, resulting in the red/blue split we've seen widen over two years. Red states aren't suffering significantly worse by any means (they may, in fact, be doing better overall), and their economies are much healthier than those of the blue states.
While it's tempting to feel some Schadenfreude about how miserable the blue states are, the idea that the US could be splitting into two countries is discomfiting. It's better to wish for the good health of all states so we can all enjoy a fully functioning union.
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