A recently made public report that has ranked the response to the COVID-19 pandemic for each state has unveiled that GOP-led states, such as Florida, are among the top performers, and that the Democrat-led states are among the bottom dregs of the list.
The Committee To Unleash Prosperity (CUP) has released what is being called the most comprehensive analysis to date concerning how the COVID-19 response was carried out by each state. The results of the study were also cosigned and published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
“The Report Card on the States measures and compares state performance on three metrics: the economy, education, and mortality from the virus. It answers the question: how did states do in balancing the health of their citizens, allowing their economies to remain operational and keeping job losses low, and keeping their schools open so that school-aged children did not suffer long term educational setbacks,” stated the Committee.
“Each of these three metrics were equally weighted. The states that received an F grade were New Jersey, New York, California, Illinois and Washington, D.C. These states performed poorly on every measure. They had high age-adjusted death rates; they had high unemployment and significant GDP losses, and they kept their schools shutdown much longer than almost all other states,” it continued. “The top performers were Utah, Nebraska, and Vermont with Montana and Florida right behind.”
A grand total of 18 states managed to acquire a grade of A or B. Out of those 18 top-performing states, 16 are headed up by Republican governors. Additionally, No Democrat-run states managed to break the top five.
The study revealed that the “biggest mistake” made by states was the long-term closures of schools and businesses.
“Shutting down their economies and schools was by far the biggest mistake governors and state officials made during Covid, particularly in blue states,” stated Stephen Moore, the Co-Founder of CUP. “We hope the results of this study will persuade governors not to close schools and businesses the next time we have a new virus variant.”
States that took steps to lock down their economies ended up averaging almost two points higher in unemployment than the states that shied away from more severe lockdowns, according to the study.
However, despite the focus on Florida’s refusal to lock down versus California’s choice to close down the entire state, the information revealed in the study did show that the total adjusted death rates from COVID-19 in the two states were almost identical.
Overall, it did give amazing insight concerning states’ rights, highlighting that “one of the wisest policy decisions was to ultimately let the 50 states and their governors and legislators make their own pandemic response policies. Federalism worked.”
The report in its entirety has been published online by CUP.