So, the question naturally follows of "What are California, Florida, Texas, and Georgia doing the others are not?" (and vice-versa, because either books are being cooked, or patients have a significantly better chance of survival in the 4 states mentioned above.
@Smokin Joe, I'm not sure how many similar actions there have been. California was early in going SiP, March 17 for SF Bay Area Counties and then statewide a few days later. I think - feel free to correct me - that the other states were a few weeks later. What the states have in common is relatively low population density, and fairly low-moderate dependency on mass transit.
It's entirely possible that the states were hit in varying degrees by the different waves. California got some infected people from China even before screening of arriving China passengers started on 1/17 at SFO and LAX. Screening started at ATL on 1/22. I suspect FL and GA got more of the slightly later wave from EuroLand than did CA.
All that speculation said, those four states having the lowest per-million cases and deaths among the states with the most cases does seem odd, CA being among them especially.