(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) The Committee to Unleash Prosperity found that Blue States faired far worse during the COVID-19 crisis than states with Republican governors according to several objective measures.
California, New York, and New Jersey suffered the highest COVID-19 death rates, the worst economic decline from lockdowns and mandates, and the poorest school outcomes. Illinois came as the fourth worst state, according to the Daily Caller.
These four states had “high age-adjusted death rates; they had high unemployment and significant GDP losses, and they kept their schools shut down longer than almost all other states.”
Utah, Vermont, and Nebraska topped the list for the best outcomes in all three categories.
Republican Gov. Phil Scott led Vermont through COVID-19 and imposed fewer restrictions than neighboring Blue States, despite Democratic supermajorities in state and local positions.
“The one piece of good news in this study is that states which maximized the individual freedoms of business owners, consumers, workers and parents – and allowed their citizens to make their own risk assessments without government mandates – had the best performance,” the report said.
Despite dire predictions, Florida—which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis kept open after the “two weeks to stop the spread” hoax—had an average death rate and maintained high economic growth rates. Florida ranked sixth after Montana and South Dakota, which came in fourth and fifth.
Nevada, New York, New Jersey and Washington D.C. had the highest death rates.
Hawaii, Vermont, Maine and Oregon had the lowest death rates, but the three Democrat-governed states had long-lasting lockdowns and school closures.
The Committee to Unleash Prosperity could not identify a statistically significant correlation between death rates and restrictions on traveling, working, or eating out.
“The study verifies other studies which have found that locking down businesses, stores, churches, schools, and restaurants had almost no impact on health outcomes across states,” the report concluded.
“States with strict lockdowns had virtually no better performance in COVID death rates than states that remained mostly open for business.”
