WA resident here, I am quite happy with the response here relative to many other places.
UW has been running 2-3k tests per day for much longer than the NY testing apparatus has been spun up, we've actually run more tests per capita than NY (though I expect things to look more normal soon), with additional capacity coming online soon. Those tests have maintained a ~7% positivity rate, which is good news.
We were some of the first to report community transmission thanks to the hard work of our research community.
In addition, the business community in the Seattle area worked to push people to WFH long before other places, keeping hundreds of thousands of people from being potential vectors for spreading COVID-19.
Frankly I don't think now is the time to be making remarks like this. WA is not perfect, but it does not boil down to tax rate.
